MAY 2018

GLOBAL UPDATES
USA
Berkeley Electric Coop rounds up bills to support local communities
An electric co-operative in California is
rounding up bills to the next highest dollar
to help fund local community projects.
Founded in 1940, Berkeley Electric
Cooperative would round up a bill of
$55.75 to USD $56.00, with the additional
$0.25 going to the Operation Round
Up Fund. Bills are rounded up from a
penny to 99 cents, but never by more
than one dollar.
The fund is administered by the Berkeley
Electric Cooperative Trust, a board of
volunteer directors made up of community
leaders from the three counties served
by the co-operative.
The funds can be used for home
repairs, heating, ventilation, and air
conditioning (HVAC) or building of
wheel chair ramps for medical necessity.
A member can receive up to $3,000 within
a three-year period for such projects.
Overall the co-op, rounds up each
participating customer’s bill by $6 per
year, which amounts to around $408,000
a year for this fund. Since its launch in
1992 the programme has raised $7.6m.
Customers can see how the money is spent
on their monthly billing statement as well
as on their year-end statement.
While customers are automatically
signed up to the Operation Round Up
programme as soon as they join the co-op,
they can choose to opt out at any time by
contacting their local district office.
Berkeley Electric Cooperative now
serves over 95,000 customers in Berkeley,
Charleston and Dorchester counties with
over 5,000 miles of line connecting them
all together, making it the largest electric
co-operative in South Carolina.
CYPRUS
Anger as
bailed-out Cyprus Coop
Bank goes on sale
The Cyprus Cooperative Bank – 77% stateowned
following a financial crisis and
bailout in 2013 – has put itself up for sale
and appointed Citigroup Global Markets
to look for buyers.
The bank is the leader in the amount
of deposits held by Cypriots, but is also
weighed down by bad loans – more than
58% of the total.
This follows a 2013 banking crisis which
forced Cyprus to accept a rescue deal that
included a seizure of unsecured deposits
in its two largest lenders.
Finance minister Harris Georgiades said
the move would rebuild confidence in the
bank. But the plans have been met with
anger from opposition parties who accuse
the government of “selling off the public
wealth”, Cyprus Mail Online reports. The
paper says the bank was recapitalised
with almost €1.7bn in taxpayers’ money
in 2014 and 2015, but it is struggling with
€6bn of non-performing loans, more than
half of its portfolio.
Main opposition Akel spokesman,
Stefanos Stefanou, said the government’s
tactic had been to hide its real intentions
“behind various promises”.
Quoted in Cyprus Mail, he said:
“Initially, the Anastasiades administration
promised to return the bank to its owners.
Later, they committed to returning the
co-operatives to the people. They prepared
a plan to list on the stock exchange but he
did not even keep that promise.”
Independent MP Anna Theologo is
leading a public protest. “I want to believe
that we care about who manages public
funds and how they embezzle people’s
money with their decisions,” she said.
“I believe that no one will tolerate
to pay again, for the third time, for the
mistakes of the banks and I truly hope
that this time those responsible assume
their responsibilities and resign.”
Other opposition MPs fear the ‘good
part’ of the bank will be sold while the
state keeps the balance sheet with the
delinquent loans,
But in an opinion piece, Cyprus Mail hit
out at the management of the bank before
the financial crisis hit, accusing it of
reckless lending in a “free-for all”, adding
that the bank’s wealth was “plundered ...
by its executives, members, customers and
political parties, all of whom benefited
from what they described as the peoplecentred
co-op movement and banking
with a human face”.
Defending the decision to sell the bank,
it added: “The CCB cannot be described as
public wealth when more than 50% of its
assets are toxic, threatening its survival.
“At least the government’s decision will
salvage something from the shipwreck.”
The bank dates back to 1938, when
Cyrus’s co-operative credit societies had
expanded to such an extent that a central
body was needed, and it became clear that
the Agricultural Bank, established in 1925,
could not meet the short-term borrowing
needs of co-ops and farmers.
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