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JAKARTA (JP): The Canada Cooperative Association (CCA) and the Cooperative Center of Denmark (CCD) have withdrawn their financial and technical aid to the Indonesian Cooperatives Council (Dekopin) to protest controversial businessman Nurdin Halid's appointment as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