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-sale of repossessed lands questionedBy Leonard GildarieGovernment has seized control of a West Bank Demerara cane farmers’ cooperative following complaints that lands were repossessed and then sold without due process.Yesterday, Chief Co-operative Development Officer (CCDO) in the Ministry of Labour, Kareem Abdul-Jabar, announced that a new management team will replace the current Committee of Management of the Belle Vue Cane Farmers Marketing Co-op Society.This latest move the CCDO comes days after the current Committee of Management hired a lawyer, in a move to block the government from interfering.At least three members who hold over 30 acres between them, yesterday complained that the co-operative is badly in need to revamping and is being controlled by relatives of a particular family.They also complained that the government officials did not do enough to protect them.About 18 members of the 55-strong co-operative are said to be facing their cane lands being repossessed.Additionally, lands seized were suspiciously sold to one farmer, raising several questions,Cheap Jerseys Free Shipping, it was claimed. There were also claims of tractors being sold illegally and without permission of the co-op members. The co-op has about 600 acres of land being controlled by its members.According to Abdul-Jabar, the interim management team has been mandated to restore lands seized from a number of farmers and investigate financial transactions by the co-op between January last year and today.Additionally, all controversial issues that is troubling the co-op will have to be investigated and fixed with fresh elections held in as little as six months.It was disclosed yesterday that the co-op, said to have been established since the 1960s, decided to go to arbitration last year to recover outstanding dues. The arbitration panel then handed down a decision that ordered a number of farmers to pay their dues or face the lands being taken away by the co-operative.Chief Co-operative Development Officer, Kareem Abdul-JabarThe affected farmers, according to the CCDO, had one month to appeal. However, while the farmers did not officially appeal, they petitioned the Ministry of Labour over the ruling, claiming that the arbitration panel did not adhere to its terms of reference.However, the operative did not wait on the CCDO to confirm the arbitration ruling and went ahead and seized the lands. These lands were later sold.According to Abdul-Jabar, from all indications, the actions of the co-op’s executive were both reckless and illegal. An order issued by the CCDO earlier this month to return the seized lands was met by a lawyer’s letter from the current Committee of Management, which clearly said that the order is to be ignored.Government had announced earlier this year, that it had about 20 co-op societies under investigation for mismanagement.Several of them were seized and interim management appointed to fix the problems.In addition to poor record keeping, there was widespread evidence of lands being seized, profits not being shared and misuse of property.In many cases, there were not proper financial records and timely elections with minutes not kept in accordance to regulations.There are about 1800 societies registered at the Ministry of Labour with an estimated 300 of these being school societies.Only about 40 per cent of the school societies are operating.There have been several accusations that school officials have stolen the savings of the school thrift societies and government has been moving to clamp down on these.With several co-ops across the country managing large tracts of lands for rice and sugar cane farming, increasingly there has been government scrutiny into the operations of these.Under these farming co-ops, the lands are planted using co-ops assets and funds and profits divided after the crop would have been harvested.Last March, the Minister of Labour, Manzoor Nadir, had held a meeting with members of the Port Mourant United Coop Society Ltd, Region Six, and distributed cheques to members who had not been receiving for a while.That co-op had also been seized and an interim management team installed. The Port Mourant co-op is set to be handed back to the farmers.