History Of Village Unit Cooperatives: When Corruption Destroys People's Welfare New Orders

JAKARTA - Cooperatives have been considered the estuary of the welfare of the Indonesian people. The presence of cooperatives can be the answer to Kerakyatan's economic development. Cooperatives also allow as a resistance to the market monopoly.

This picture is trying to be presented by Suharto and the New Order (Orba). They want a empowered and strong village community. The Village Unit Cooperative (KUD) was built. Instead of being able to improve the economy of the villagers, the presence of the KUD was actually preserved as the head of profit first.

The cooperative system was once the mainstay of the government in the early era of Indonesia's independence. Mohammad Hatta became the main driver. Bung Hatta is of the view that cooperatives can revive the Indonesian economy. The idea arose because cooperatives could become people's businesses to improve their lives.

The success of cooperatives is considered to be the beginning of people's economic development. Cooperatives that create production, consumption, and credit are needed. The turnaround is like translating the true meaning of gotong royong.

All because the main goal of cooperatives is to meet the needs of members. Cooperatives can be a means of distributing food needs at affordable prices. People are protected from market monopolies. It also does not depend on imports of food from abroad.

Recently, Suharto and New Order were interested in the development of the people's economy through cooperatives. The owner of power issued Presidential Instruction (Inpres) Number 4 of 1973. The Presidential Instruction contains the placement of KUD as the only cooperative at the village level.

KUD is fully supported by the government with large injections of funds to good facilities. The New Order government then tried to expand the KUD's wings. They made KUD as a management for the distribution of fertilizers to agricultural products.

The narrative further confirms that KUD has a function as a production and consumption cooperative. KUD can help farmers get fertilizer.

KUD also helps buy farmers' crops. As a result, cooperatives will also sell and distribute farmers' products to the wider community. The village becomes empowered. The government can build more cooperatives.

Furthermore, by lending food barns through KUD in the form of rice to regions, whose communities can potentially produce rice in the following harvest season. For the management of the rice barn, 1,000 tons have been prepared for KUD in five districts, namely West Lombok, Central Lombok, East Lombok, Sumbawa, and Bima.

"Meanwhile, in NTT, 750 tons were prepared for KUD in seven districts, namely Kupang, North Central Timor, South Central Timor, Ende, East Flores, East Sumba, and West Sumba Regency. In addition, there is also free assistance from the Ministry of Social Affairs for the community, who are unable and the amount of rice reserved is 750 tons in NTT and 500 tons in NTB," wrote the Media Karya report entitled Beware of Drought Disasters (1987).

The idea of cooperatives as a lesson to build a populist economy is indeed magnificent. Sometimes it is called ambitious. However, to create a cooperative climate that is in line with the path is too difficult. The chances of surviving a KUD are considered small.

The narrative is because KUD has many problems. Weak management and full of corruption. This problem can be seen because not all yields can be purchased by KUD. Farmers then rush to sell to the middle and give up on the market mechanism. Not to mention if the farmers fail to harvest lose everything.

This sad story is increasing when the KUD management starts looking for personal benefits: corruption. A lot of assistance from the government is embezzled. The assets that should belong to the cooperative actually become private property.

Cooperatives are often used as a political tool, rather than a tool to build a people's economy. As a result, the image of the KUD that is often preserved by the chairman of profit first is unavoidable. One by one the KUD began to collapse. As a result, many people are allergic to cooperatives. KUD is considered a hotbed of small corruptors.

They consider cooperatives to be a symbol of failure, rather than economic development. Many are traumatized by dealing with KUD. In fact, what failed was not the cooperative, but the management. This is proof that building cooperatives is not easy. the government must pay extra attention.

But building cooperatives is not difficult, because it must start from building the spirit! What spirit? The spirit of social solidarity, the spirit of togetherness, mutual cooperation, the spirit of anti-individualism, anti-egoism, the spirit of helping each other.

"In addition, the spirit of wanting to live together must also be nurtured, the spirit of wanting to move forward together, the spirit of mutual trust, the spirit of honesty, the spirit of mutual need, not wanting to deceive each other, not being corrupt. The spirit of openness, being willing to be monitored and responsible. It must be at the level of prospective members and cooperative administrators," said Ben Mboi in Ben Mboi's book: Memoar A Doctor, Soldier, Pamong Praja (2011).