Thousands of the victims of fraudulent cooperatives’ owners have repeatedly staged massive protests in the capital Kathmandu and other major towns across the country. After days- or weeks-long agitation, successive governments have signed agreements with the representatives of the victims. For instance, last year, the then minister for Land Management, Cooperatives, and Poverty Alleviation, Ranjita Shrestha, promised to resolve their problems and signed a seven-point agreement in the first week of August. The government failed to implement it. Then Balaram Adhikari replaced Shrestha at the ministry. The victims had to take to the streets again as the government failed to honour its commitment. Then, an Adhikari-led committee signed an eight-point agreement in March this year. This too was shelved.

The authorities failed to make any progress even on the announcement made in the annual budget unveiled in May. The then finance minister Barsha Man Pun, while presenting the budget on May 28, had announced that the money of small depositors of up to Rs 500,000 would be returned. There was no progress on this front as well. Cheated by authorities multiple times, the cooperative victims yet again resumed their protest. This time, after a 108-day long protest, the authorities yet again signed an eight-point agreement with the victims on Monday. And yet again, things are not looking good for the victims.

On Tuesday, a day after the ministry officials reached a new deal in Kathmandu and the victims became ready to halt their protests, the area outside the venue in Pokhara where a provincial meeting of the Rastriya Swatantra Party was to take place, turned tense. This happened after a group of cooperative victims showed black flags to party chief Rabi Lamichhane, who is accused of embezzling millions of rupees from Pokhara-based Surya Darshan and other cooperatives. Former home minister Lamichhane vented his ire against the victims. He even went on to accuse the victims of being ‘mobilised’ at the behest of certain external elements. This was something unbecoming of the leader of the fourth largest force in the House—and of an ex-deputy prime minister at that.

Lamichhane is one of the most high-profile individuals accused in the cooperative scam. A special parliamentary inquiry committee is investigating his involvement. The panel last month quizzed him continuously for around 10 hours. Though Lamichhane and his party have been claiming his innocence, several probes including those carried out by the House committee, police, local governments and other agencies point to his prominent role in the embezzlement of cooperative funds.

Multiple studies and investigations have shown that the gravity of the cooperative crisis is unimaginable. The chair of the parliamentary special inquiry committee Surya Thapa says if the issue is not handled properly and promptly, the country’s entire financial sector could face a crisis. As of now, the House panel has found problems in around 500 cooperatives.

We thus urge ‘high profile individuals’ linked to the scam not to incite the victims, who have already been cheated by cooperatives and subsequently by government authorities—multiple times. They seem to be running out of patience. The agitation by hundreds of thousands of angry victims of cooperatives may take a nasty turn at any time. At his volatile time, using disrespectful language against them would be like rubbing salt into their wounds. In the same spirit, we urge the parliamentary committee to quickly conclude the study and hand over the final report to the government. Prolonging this sordid saga is in no one’s interest, especially the victims who have clamoured for justice for so long. Given the gravity of the matter, resolving the cooperative crisis—and soon—should be the top priority of the government, the Parliament and all the other involved state agencies.