The Colombian government faces challenges in strengthening cooperatives through direct contracting with social organizations. The Superintendencia de Economía Solidaria identifies institutional barriers and risks of denaturalizing the cooperative model. Cases like SaludCoop highlight the need for stronger regulatory tools.
In Colombia, community associativity is crucial to counter the state's weak presence in regions, addressing food security and basic services issues. Yet, institutional barriers hinder direct contracting with community action boards or cooperatives, showing that the system does not support associativity.
The government has advanced public policies and contracting to deepen the cooperative approach, but risks remain. The Superintendencia de Economía Solidaria identifies denaturalizations where business logic overshadows solidarity principles, such as business units within cooperatives that fail to benefit members.
Law 222 of 1995 empowers the Superintendencia de Sociedades to detect enterprise groups, but lacks specifics for cooperative groups, undermining legal security. The focus should not be limiting these groups but preventing solidarity model evasions through tools for risk management and transparency.
The SaludCoop case, founded in 1994 under Law 79 of 1988, illustrates this: it expanded into for-profit subsidiaries under Carlos Palacino's leadership, who was recently convicted, forming the Grupo Empresarial SaludCoop. Fragmented oversight between Supersolidaria and the Superintendencia Nacional de Salud enabled power concentration with public funds.
Likewise, Coosalud features a cooperative parent with an EPS and linked firms, where investments do not yield member benefits. The Superintendencia advocates defining criteria for cooperative enterprise groups and granting powers for internal controls and financial disclosure, bolstering foundations for transparency and local economic democracy.