Canada, Denmark cancel aid to Dekopin over appointment

Canada, Denmark cancel aid to Dekopin over appointment

JAKARTA (JP): The Canada Cooperative Association (CCA) and the
Cooperative Center of Denmark (CCD) have withdrawn their
financial and technical aid to the Indonesian Cooperatives
Council (Dekopin) to protest controversial businessman Nurdin
Halid's appointment as Dekopin's new chairman.

The Indonesian Cooperative Union (Perkopin) said on Tuesday
the two organizations had expressed their disappointment with the
development of cooperatives in Indonesia over the past two years,
and this disappointment peaked with the appointment of Nurdin as
chairman.

"They said Indonesian cooperatives had been run far from the
basic principles of the cooperatives movement. And they fear that
electing Nurdin to chair the highest body of the Indonesian
cooperatives will make it worse," the secretary-general of
Perkopin, Sriwulan Ningrat, said.

"The cooperatives movement needs a clean, honest and credible
leader. Nurdin has committed so many mistakes in his previous
career in cooperatives. His involvement in the clove farmers fund
is also not yet clear," she said.

The CCD and Dekopin have formed a cooperation over the past 10
years. Under the cooperation, the CCD funded 75 percent of the
Cooperatives Education Agency. The contract for this funding will
end next year.

CCA and Dekopin have cooperated in developing potato
plantations in East Java, Yogyakarta and West Java, in which most
of the funding was provided by CCA.

Last month, Nurdin a businessman and a legislator with the
ruling Golkar Party, was acquitted of embezzlement charges by the
Ujungpandang District Court. The prosecutors in the case said
they lacked evidence to prove Nurdin embezzled Rp 115.77 billion
(US$12 million) from clove farmers' compulsory accounts at a
large cooperative.

Nurdin was the director of the Central Cooperative, which
acted as the sole buyer of cloves from village cooperatives in
South Sulawesi.

The court's controversial decision to acquit Nurdin drew
strong protests, particularly from students at Hasanuddion
University in Ujungpandang.

Nurdin was elected the new chairman of Dekopin at the
council's congress last week. However, many parties, including
several cooperative associations under Dekopin, opposed the
selection, saying Nurdin used "money politics" to win the
election.

They also urged the government to cancel Nurdin's appointment,
at least until Nurdin settled the case with the clove farmers.

Nurdin's appointment is subject to the approval of Minister of
Cooperatives and Small Enterprises Adi Sasono, who will
officially install Nurdin as the chairman of the council.

Adi has said the election was fair and the results were final.

Wulan said Perkopin, with several others cooperative
associations, would hold a rally in Jakarta and several other
large cities if the government maintained its support of Nurdin.

She said her organization also appealed to other international
cooperative organizations, including the Canada-based
International Cooperative Alliance, to halt their aid to Dekopin
if Nurdin was appointed chairman. (gis)