Committee formed to review foreign funding received by NGOs

The federal cabinet has notified the formation of a committee to review foreign funding received by both international and domestic nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), it emerged on Wednesday.

According to the notification dated September 3, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, the six-member committee will include Law and Justice Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar, Foreign Secretary Syrus Sajjad Qazi, Economic Secretary Dr Kazim Niaz, Interior Secretary Capt (retired) Khurram Muhammad Agha, Finance Secretary Imdad Ullah Bosal, and Law and Justice Secretary Raja Naeem Akbar.

The committee will “review the channels” through which NGOs receive foreign funding, suggesting concrete measures to ensure transparency and visible funding trails, the notification read.

“The committee will also ensure that any funding received by NGOs will be “utilised for the purpose for which they have been received”.

The notification added that the committee has four weeks to submit its report to the federal cabinet.

The move came after sources previously told Dawn that the government was set to decide whether to allow over a dozen international NGOs to work in the country or not.

A meeting of the special committee formed to look into this issue was chaired by Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi on August 31. The NGOs include those who either denied permission to operate in Pakistan and asked to renew their registration or the ones whose memorandums of understanding — signed with the government — have expired and have applied for their renewal.

During the meeting, the INGOs’ applications against the rejection of their registration and for the renewal of memorandums of understanding (MoUs) were reviewed. The interior minister said a detailed review of each application and relevant documents submitted by the organisations would be conducted.

The policy

In 2015, the government put together a policy framework to streamline and facilitate the work of INGOs operating in the country.

Under the policy, unveiled by the then-interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, all INGOs, working or wanting to work in Pakistan, were asked to register with the Ministry of Interior by signing MoUs.

Organisations that did not comply with the directives were stopped from operating in Pakistan.

The INGOs were also barred from raising funds inside or outside the country or assisting their local offices without permission from the government.

Months before unveiling the policy, Khan had disclosed that more than 1,000 foreign intelligence operators had come to Islamabad over the past few years under the guise of INGOs’ representatives.

In December 2018, the PTI government had kicked out 18 international charities after rejecting their final appeal to stay in the country.

The majority of the shuttered aid groups were US-based, while the rest were from the UK and the European Union.

According to a document penned at that time by the apex intelligence agency, some of these INGOs had vast capital and “well-established ingress from top government level to grass root levels of union councils”.

The INGOs had “turned into a mafia”, the document stated.

“Following a scrutiny of the INGOs by state organisations, scores … were found working against the interest of Pakistan and involved in sensitive issues related to security and religious matters,” the document said.

Some of these INGOs were accused of contributing to a “hybrid war” against Pakistan and also “encouraging sectarianism, promoting foreign agenda, supporting hostile spy agencies, collecting illegal data and operating without any legal backing”.

The country’s premier intelligence agency had also accused the INGOs of “working as front offices of hostile intelligence agencies, trying to influence electoral system, weapon smuggling, illegal data collection, hiding presence of foreign employees, supporting the sub-nationalist and anti-state movement”, among other serious accusations.