Overcoming Illegal Loans, The Government Is Considered To Have Revived Savings And Loans Cooperatives

Illustration. (Photo: Pixabay)

JAKARTA - The rise of problems that arise from illegal online loans (pinjol), reminds us again of an increasingly forgotten economic model, cooperatives, especially Savings and Loans Cooperatives (KSP). The government should revive a healthy national cooperative ecosystem and remove the bad stigmas about cooperatives that keep people away from the people's economic system based on the principle of kinship.

This was expressed by a number of parties who hoped that the national cooperative system could be a solution in the midst of the economic downturn due to the pandemic. Even if there are cooperatives that experience difficulties or problems, the government must step in to fix it, so that public trust in cooperatives can be maintained.

"The government is obliged to foster and supervise so that a cooperative becomes a healthy cooperative. Unless it is related to legal issues, and even then if it has to do with the role of the government, the government must still enter," said the Financial Technology Observer and Secretary for Sharia Banking at the National Sharia Council (DSN). ) Muhammad Maksum in a written statement, Wednesday 24 November.

Maksum emphasized that cooperatives are the most suitable financial institutions with the characteristics of the Indonesian people who prioritize the principle of kinship.

"Community-based financing such as cooperatives is very suitable for the Indonesian people. Because it is community-based, one of the risk mitigations is the obligation to share and bear the risk of loss. Unless there is a criminal act or an act of abuse of authority," said Maksum.

Member of Commission VI of the House of Representatives, Marwan Jafar, said that cooperatives should be the foundation for the national economy. Therefore, the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs must be more observant in fostering and assisting existing cooperatives, so that they can truly have a positive impact on the economy.

"Of course, cooperatives are profitable for their members and have a broad impact on society. It is not only cooperatives that make proposals and ask for an injection of funds," he said.

He did not deny, there are some cooperative management who are naughty and detrimental to the members of the cooperative. However, if there are cooperatives that are trying to resolve problems with members and customers, as happened with KSP Indosurya, the government should also support the resolution of the problem according to the court's decision.

"If the intention is to return it, I think it's good, yes, and it needs to be appreciated. Although this intention still has to be proven concretely," he said.

Responding to those who tried to interfere with the homologation carried out by KSP Indosurya, Deputy for Cooperatives at the Kemenkop-UKM Ahmad Zabadi said he hoped that no one would interfere with this effort.

"Fulfillment of obligations does need to be implemented according to the decision, of course we hope that there are no parties that interfere with or thwart Homologation. However, KSP Indosurya must also show its seriousness by then make payments transparently, open to all members so that all members can get a clear and clear picture. good," he said.

He emphasized that the management must actively provide up-to-date information that confirms the trust of members.

"It is important for cooperatives and also members to provide clear information in order to build good and transparent communication. So everyone believes that the Homologation process is being implemented, and there is no impression that it is only buying time," he said.

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Meanwhile, Chairman of the Association for Strategic Socio-Economic Cadres (AKSES) Suroto admitted that Indonesia is actually the owner of the largest number of cooperatives in the world. The number has reached 212,339 cooperatives in 2015.

"But its contents are dominated by nameplate cooperatives. This condition not only damages the image of the cooperative, but the community does not know which cooperatives are right and which are wrong. Like a cooperative is a teak tree, its existence is covered by unkempt shrubs. Cooperatives eventually grow steadily. worse," he said.

To restore the image of cooperatives so that they can become financial institutions that are close and trusted by the public, Suroto said, the Ministry of Cooperatives should have the courage to clean up cooperatives from loan sharks wearing cooperative clothes or fake cooperatives.

Because of this silence from the relevant authorities, he continued, cases of misappropriation of cooperative members' funds were repeated every year. "Many fake and fake cooperatives that harm the community over and over again and continue to appear like an iceberg phenomenon," he said.

Zabadi said that his party is currently making an inventory of problematic cooperatives. According to him, usually problematic cooperatives arise because the values and basic principles of cooperatives are not applied and the misuse of member savings funds placed in investments.

He said that from many cases involving cooperatives, some of them ended in PKPU and received verdicts from the Commercial Court, such as KSP Indosurya, KSP Lima Garuda, KSP Pracico Inti Sejahtera and KSP Sejahtera Bersama.

Currently, these cooperatives are implementing a homologation decision, which requires the return of members' savings within a certain period of time (an average of 5 years).

He himself remains optimistic that cooperatives will continue to grow and are needed by the community. Based on the Online Data System (ODS) of the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs, the number of active cooperatives at the end of 2020 was 127,124 units, up from the data at the end of 2019 of 123,048 units.