In a letter sent to the PAC, Labour MP Joe Abela asked for an investigation of the Cooperatives Board claiming it had not acted responsibly with regard to the Poultry Cooperative.

Mr Abela said two administrators without a contract managed the cooperative. The accounts of the cooperative had not been forwarded to the Cooperative Board for many years and the Cooperatives Board had not taken the necessary steps it should have taken according to law.

Thousands of liri have disappeared but the Cooperatives Board did not inform its members.

The cooperative had been using a factory at Hal Far to slaughter poultry. But the factory had been leased from an individual who i had leased it from MDC and should not have sub-leased it.

The cooperative was also calling itself a limited liability company, which it was not.

A ministerial inquiry board, set up in 2004, found it was powerless to order people to testify before it.

All these questionable activities have put all cooperatives in the country in a bad light, Mr Abela concluded.

Meanwhile, in another letter to the PAC, the committee was informed that a liquidator had been found for another failed cooperative, the Public Cleaning Cooperative (KIP).