With the gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to in­crease co­op­er­a­tive so­ci­eties’ trans­fer of shares payable to death ben­e­fi­cia­ries and au­tho­rise them to cash cheques, the Cen­tral Fi­nance Fa­cil­i­ty (CFF) be­lieves that the co­op­er­a­tive move­ment is fi­nal­ly be­ing tak­en se­ri­ous­ly.

Ac­cord­ing to CFF pres­i­dent Leti­tia Teles­ford, mem­bers are elat­ed that there are in­di­ca­tions that the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment has re­mem­bered the cred­it union move­ment. With the prospects of the move­ment in­creas­ing its stake in the lo­cal fi­nance in­dus­try, Teles­ford en­cour­aged cred­it union lead­ers to par­tic­i­pate in the up­com­ing ‘Thought Lead­er­ship Ses­sion’ with Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, Robert Lee Hunte, who will speak on the na­tion­al bud­get.

The Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union is card­ed to speak on its ac­qui­si­tion of the Guaracara Re­fin­ery Com­pa­ny in Pointe-a-Pierre.

“For years, cred­it unions have been clam­our­ing for en­hanced reg­u­la­tions, an in­crease in the death ben­e­fit lim­it and the pow­er of cred­it unions to en­cash gov­ern­ment checks and to pay util­i­ty bills on be­half of their mem­bers.

“Fi­nal­ly, we are be­ing tak­en se­ri­ous­ly. While we are en­cour­aged by these an­nounce­ments, we know that there is a long road ahead,” said Teles­ford.

She added, “As a move­ment of some 400 cit­i­zens with $15 bil­lion in as­sets, we have long sought to be a re­spect­ed part­ner of Gov­ern­ment in na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

“At the CFF, we want our mem­bers to own and op­er­ate busi­ness­es and con­trol the en­ter­pris­es from whom we buy. The 2019/2020 Bud­get sig­nals the be­gin­ning of our jour­ney to­wards these goals.”

Dur­ing Mon­day’s na­tion­al bud­get read­ing, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert an­nounced the pro­pos­al to amend the Co-op­er­a­tive So­ci­eties’ Act to in­crease the cur­rent lim­it of $5,000 im­posed on the trans­fer of shares or in­ter­est payable to a nom­i­nat­ed ben­e­fi­cia­ry up­on the death of a mem­ber to $50,000.

The mea­sure is ex­pect­ed to take ef­fect from Jan­u­ary 1, 2020.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, steps are to be tak­en to al­low cred­it unions to of­fer ser­vices sim­i­lar to the banks, in­clud­ing the pay­ment of util­i­ty bills.

A new in­de­pen­dent au­thor­i­ty to gov­ern the co-op­er­a­tive sec­tor will be es­tab­lished to reg­u­late fi­nan­cial co-op­er­a­tives and re­port to the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

When es­tab­lished, fi­nan­cial cred­it unions will be able to of­fer bank­ing or qua­si-bank­ing ser­vices, such as the en­cash­ment of cheques and teller ser­vices.

The De­posit In­sur­ance Cor­po­ra­tion will be re­quired to main­tain a fund to meet any emerg­ing li­a­bil­i­ties of the sec­tor.