BY HARRY MAYERS

COMPLAINTS ABOUT TOO MANY overseas trips and spending of money always cause people's antennas to shoot up.

Mine did on hearing about how some sources, hiding behind anonymity, were trying to raise a storm about credit-card expenditure and travel costs of the Barbados Public Workers' Credit Union Limited, or BPWCUL.

The sources know about effective timing. They released their "concerns" just before the organisation's annual general meeting which was scheduled to be held last Saturday.

By this morning, it should be clear whether the expenditures complained of were justified. If reasonable explanations were given, it would be the hope of credit unionists that in future nothing is done to tarnish the good name of the credit union movement in Barbados.

Members have every right to question all the workings of their credit unions. But they should also be extremely careful that the manner of their questioning does not sow seeds of unwarranted suspicion about the operations of an organisation that plays no small role in the financial transformation of ordinary, hard-working people.

With more than 60 000 members and about half a billion dollars under its control, BPWCUL towers as one of the great examples of cooperation, enterprise and trust in post-colonial Barbados.

I gather it is probably the only local credit union whose annual report has not been qualified by auditors. That means the BPWCUL has a clean bill of health and nothing, accounting-wise, is in dispute.

That sounds like an achievement of which all should be proud.