Victims of the Nepalese finance co-op fraud have staged fresh demonstrations in Kathmandu to demand the immediate return of their deposits.
The rally, under the banner under the banner of the National Campaign for Cooperative Depositors Protection, also calls for a reliable plan to secure their funds, reports Nepal News.
Protesters marched to the office of the Problematic Cooperative Management Committee (PCMC) in Buddhanagar, and onward to the National Cooperative Regulatory Authority in Pulchowk.
They carried copies of previous agreements signed with the government, and voiced frustration that ministers are discriminating between small and large depositors in the refund process.
The protests are the latest turn in a corruption scandal that has rocked the country’s finance co-op sector over the past few years, with embezzlement of member’s funds on a massive scale.
Hundreds of arrests have been made and concerns raised over regulatory oversight and political influence.
In May, it was reported that the government has started returning deposits to small savers, with the PCMC stating initial priority was going to depositors with smaller savings. It added that refunds will be processed gradually based on classification of deposit amounts.
Related: Fallout continues from Nepal’s co-op scandal
Around 76,000 depositors of troubled co-operatives are owed approximately Rs46bn (£224m, US$300m) in total, say officials.
Most of these are small depositors, with less than Rs500,000; those with more than Rs500,000 are classified as large depositors.
Out of the total, around 18,000 people fall under the large depositor category.
The PCMC is focusing on institutions formally declared troubled, but the Kathmandu Post reports that victims and experts warn this excludes a much bigger number of co-ops that have collapsed, whose operators have disappeared and whose members have been protesting for years with no clear path to recovering their savings.
The federal government has so far declared 23 co-ops troubled, while Bagmati Province has listed five and Koshi Province one.
But victims’ representatives say that more than 500 institutions across the country have stopped returning deposits even though they have not been officially classified as problematic – and victims fall outside the government’s refund programme.
