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After NGOs, Foundations to come under watch
Foundations incorporated through Private Members’ bills in Parliament will be monitored by the NGO Secretariat in new laws being drafted by the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development, officials said this week. The laws will also impose controls on non-profit organisations registered with the Registrar of Companies, trusts and some societies, they said.
]Amendments to the Voluntary Social Service Organisations (Registration and Supervision) Act are expected to be ready in six months. “Under the proposed amendments, they will have to register with the Secretariat or lose the right to receive foreign funds and conduct local monetary transactions,” said Saman Dissanayake, director of the National Secretariat for Non-Governmental Organisations.
“They will have to submit reports to us every three months about their activities,” he said. “They will have to sign standard Memorandums of Understanding with us like NGOs do. The current provision for lifetime registration will be replaced by annually renewable registration.”
An additional layer of vetting has already been introduced with regard to the incorporation of foundations through Private Members’ Bills in Parliament. The Cabinet Secretary, who receives these Bills and submits them for the approval of ministers, is now also sending them to the Secretariat for its observations. As a result of this development, the Secretariat recently questioned the motives of a Private Members’ Bill to incorporate the ‘Sanwardhana Pahasukam Selaseemey Madyasthanaya’ or Sri Lanka Centre for Development Facilitation. “It is already registered with us as an NGO and we felt there was no need for it to be incorporated as well,” Mr. Dissanayake said.
The Director declined to name the Member of Parliament who introduced the Bill but the Parliament website reveals that it is National List MP Rajiva Wijesinha.
Civil society representatives are openly critical of moves to bring in more regulation of the NGO sector. Nimalka Fernando, lawyer and rights activist, said the Government was stifling social action through various means, including increased surveillance and militarisation. She asserted that it was mostly concerned with organisations doing work in the fields of human rights, accountability, governance and democracy.
“In the South, we have enjoyed freedom of holding our meetings and facilitating our activities by getting external resources,” Ms Fernando said. Repression sometimes came in the form of various allegations or Government-backed thugs attacking meetings. “Now they are trying to stifle our activities by bringing us into a regulatory mechanism. We are anyway regulated,” she said.
But officials claimed they “have had no problem” with the NGOs already registered with the Secretariat. They have conformed to requirements and have a smooth working relationship with the Government. However, they were concerned about those that were not accountable to anyone. “There are plenty of people who will readily give money for activities to destabilise the country and the Government,” said Mr. Dissanayake. “Foreign funds can be used for good purposes and bad purposes.”
Large numbers of foundations are set up through Private Members’ Bills every year, officials said. They gain status as legal entities that are incorporated by Acts of Parliament. This allows them to set up bank accounts to receive foreign and local funds. They may apply for tax exemptions and are typically answerable only to their own boards.
“They do what they want afterwards,” said Janaka Sampath, Assistant Director of the NGO Secretariat. “There is nobody to monitor what they are doing, what their mandate is, where the money comes from, how it is spent and whether their stated objectives are being met.” The NGO Secretariat is now gathering data about the various foundations, charities and non-profit organisations already in existence. The number of registered NGOs is 1,426. In addition to this, an estimated 2,800 non-profit organisations are listed with the Registrar of Companies. The number of foundations incorporated by Acts of Parliament is not known.