THE Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) warned non-cooperative members who are planning on applying for a membership to be careful in choosing which cooperative they will sign up with.
CDA Cooperative Project Development and Assistance Section head Tony Escobar said cooperative membership applicants should make sure that the cooperatives that they are joining, complies with the necessary documents required by CDA to be submitted annually 120 days after the end of the year.
These documents include Cooperative Annual Progress Report (CAPR), audited financial statements, social audit, performance audit report, and the list of officers and the trainings they had undertaken.
Escobar during the Kapehan sa Dabaw weekly forum at SM City Davao Monday, April 24, added the cooperatives should also be operating according to their authorized and declared objective.
“You try to look at the articles of the cooperative. So if the business is lending, you have to find out if the objective is really to generate funds and extends loans to members. Otherwise if it is involved in credit operations, then their objective is to provide consumer products to the cooperatives, then it is not engaged into lending. So you have to verify the right business of that cooperative,” he said.
Escobar said membership applicants should make sure that the cooperative they are eyeing must also comply with local requirements, like business permits.
The cooperative employees should also be receiving the right amount of wages according to the national labor standards and should also be have Social Security Systems (SSS), Pag-ibig, and Philhealth contributions just like regular business establishment’s employees as required by the law.
Through these guidelines, Escobar said, the associations or individuals applying for membership will be assured that the cooperatives are legitimate. (JPA)