ISLAMABAD: Alarmed by the dearth of information and statistics available about the source of funding and the office bearers of the non-government organizations (NGOs), the Supreme Court on Wednesday deplored the government’s sluggish response in preventing the potential misuse of funds received by these organisations.

A three-judge Supreme Court bench, headed by Justice Jawwad S Khawaja, asked Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt to present the required information and outline what steps the government had taken after Dec 24, 2014, when the National Action Plan (NAP) was agreed upon by all the political parties.

The matter relating to NGOs’ activities had cropped up during the June 23 hearing of a bail application moved by Haroonur Rashid, who was booked for alleged fraud in a business transaction. During the case, it emerged that the parties involved had invested in a Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP)-based NGO ‘Baraan’, which was registered in Peshawar but had spread its activities to Tank, Bannu and DI Khan.

“This is quite an alarming situation,” Justice Khawaja observed while dictating an order, adding that the 20 point NAP included the stipulation that “all sources of terrorists and terrorist’s outfits funding will be frozen”.

Govt doesn’t appear serious about enforcing NAP, observes Justice Khawaja

In view of what transpired at the hearing on Wednesday, it was clear that the achievement of this objective, at least to the extent of NGOs, is not possible because the government did not even have the relevant information and seemed to be making no effort to collect them, despite the passage of six months since the announcement of NAP, he deplored.

Serious efforts were required to monitor the NGOs and regulate them in accordance with the applicable statutes, Justice Khawaja said, adding that such a serious matter was being dealt with in a most non-serious and casual manner by the government.

This much is apparent from the submissions made in the court and also from the reports filed in this case by the five governments, which were grossly unsatisfactory and inadequate, the court said.

The court also found it amazing that though the registration and funding of the NGOs was supposedly covered and regulated by four basic statutes, such as the Societies Registration Act 1860, the Trust Act 1832, the Voluntary Social Welfare Agencies (Registration and Control) Rules 1962 and the Companies Ordinance 1984, all five governments, including the federal, did not appear not to have the relevant statistics in respect of these NGOs or their sources of funding.

The court was told that around 10,000 NGOs each have been registered in Sindh and KP, 7,000 in Punjab, 1,500 in the Balochistan and 12 NGOs have been registered in the federal capital under the Economic Affairs Division as well as another 643 that were registered under Section 42 of the Companies Ordinance.

When Additional Advocate General KP Mian Arshad Jan told the court that there was no system in the province to monitor or audit the funding of the NGOs in the province, the court regretted that KP was the most terrorist-prone province, yet it was the one least bothered about regulating NGOs.

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2015

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