The group, led by one Azmi Mahmud Ramli, said this was because the current management, Malaysian Cooperative Commission (MCC), which he claimed took over Kotamas on April 19 this year, had failed to bring about any improvement.
They also expressed dissatisfaction with MCC’s decision to appoint Md Yusof Samsudin as the new administrator of Kotamas, saying there may be a conflict of interest on Yusof’s part, especially as he was also an adviser to another cooperative, Angkasa.
“We want the management to be returned to the members immediately.
“Then we can hold an annual general meeting where we can either (decide to) retain the current board of directors or elect new ones,” said Azmi at a press conference at the Kuala Lumpur International Hotel here today.
Although the group claimed to represent all 17,000 Kotamas members, and said that it was every member’s wish to have MCC leave the cooperative’s administration in their hands, only 15 were present this evening.
They also claimed to have collected 200 signatures from their Kuala Lumpur-based members in support of this call. However, they refused to let the media see the petition.
During the first half of the press conference, Azmi called for the management of Kotamas to be handed over to members of its recently dissolved board of directors.
“Even without the four, we still have another 11 directors on the board. They can manage Kotamas,” said Azmi, adding that the board was made up of 15 directors.
He later changed his statement, clarifying that what he meant was for management rights to be handed back to the members.
The “four” he was referring to were Kotamas’ chairman, secretary, treasurer and board member, who were arrested by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) on Tuesday for alleged fraud and abuse of power that resulted in Kotamas losing up to RM23 million.
When asked how they could still trust the current board members after the allegations surfaced, Azmi said they believed in the concept of “innocent until proven guilty”, and that even if the four were found guilty, the other directors may not have been negligent.
The loss of the RM23 million was allegedly linked to one supply company, which had been the sole vendor for Kotamas since 2015.
Two others were also arrested, namely the owner of the supply company, and the board member’s wife, who is a civil servant.
The six are being remanded for five days from Wednesday, to facilitate investigations.
MCC announced the takeover of Kotamas’ management yesterday, after the arrests.
MCC, speaking to the New Straits Times, said the takeover was to “protect the sanctity of the country’s first registered cooperative”, and that among its priorities was “to recoup every sen owed to Kotamas”.
Afiqah Farieza contributed to this article.