Download (28Mb) - LSE Theses Online

they account for around a third of credit facilities 51 and as agricultural employment
dropped by 60% in 1974/5, the credit facilities they offered and extended could
have been crucial in bolstering confidence. However, most borrowing from local
credit societies is registered as consumption (i.e. personal loans) or loans for
extending domestic private property for non-commercial purposes. The latter may
be registered as private fixed capital formation (when funding dérivés from a quasipublic
body - underwritten by the state in times of duress) and also register as a
boost to the 1968 ISIC "ownership of dwelling" category when the credit may have
more productive purposes in terms of: employment, value added and foreign
exchange. The borrower may even tell the secretary of the local credit society on
application, what the loan is really for but, because of legal obligations, the
secretary may advise how best to register the purpose of the loan 52 . This kind of
investment could have been significant, perhaps crucial, in the post '74 era when
much collatéral had been written off. It does not, however, register in officiai
statistics as commercial investment, let alone assisting in the recaiibration of the
private / public investment scales of the time. Not only does this form of credit
appear officially as a negative economic phenomenon but, at the time, it may have
appeared to substantiate a crowding out effect, when it may have been an integral
feature of a wider Keynesian demand strategy (as ultimately the Government would
underwrite a major failure in the co-operative sector).
51 Interview with Leslie G. Manison, Advisor to the Minister of Finance, carried out on the 15/9/95
in his office in the Ministry of Finance.
52 Interview with Andreas Hadjixenphontas, Principal Auditor at the Co-operative Auditing Service
(which replaced the Registrar), carried out on the 24/9/95, at his home.
256