LakbimaNews
The government of Mahinda Rajapaksa has from the beginning of his term as president conducted a love-hate relationship with local and international NGOs.
Publicly, it has been more hate than love. NGOs are constantly – and conveniently – accused of a flood of conspiracies carried out at the behest of international forces acting against the interests of Sri Lanka. The most recent allegation is that some NGOs (still unnamed) funnelled international funds into the campaign of Sarath Fonseka. The US and Norway have been named as supporters of this initiative. They have rejected the charge.
When analysing the government’s recent association with NGOs and the international community, particularly the West, it is clear that one compulsion drives policy: Hate them when they criticise you and love them when they endorse whatever you do. Even when proof of misdeed (if at all) cannot immediately be proffered, the state has taken to roundly discrediting countries, persons and organisations because this usually helps rally the public around the government.
That strategy may work for the state. But it poses a dilemma for local and international organisations, many of whom have been working in Sri Lanka for years. Firzan Hashim, deputy executive director of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (CHA), feels that if there are serious allegations against certain NGOs, “it is best to reveal who they are and to get on with investigations”.
“The Central Bank,” he said, “has means of getting to your finances, of double checking the accounts, of keeping tabs on money coming in and going out. This information was also submitted by many organisations to the Parliamentary Select Committee on NGOs which sat many times. If there is evidence of wrongdoing, it’s only fair that the relevant agencies are notified and told to show cause. Nobody to my knowledge has been asked to do so.”
Serious concerns
There are clearly serious concerns about the conduct of some NGOs, particularly with regards to the use of funds. It is believed that millions of rupees donated as tsunami aid or war assistance was misused, badly applied or pilfered. Several media sector NGOs were embarrassed by revelations of fraud for which, surprisingly, there was proof. Meanwhile, a board of inquiry appointed by Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, who is also the minister of internal administration, is currently probing the financial activities of two NGOs – one headquartered in Battaramulla and another headquartered in Horton Place.
A kurta top, spun shawls and linen pants community unto themselves, the employees of NGOs are commonly accused of spending the most on themselves while passing on a pittance to the country. Towering salaries, generous allowances, swanky cafes, artsy stuff and parties on the beach are what many are known for. The piles of reports they produce often outnumber, it is said, the projects they implement. But if this is what rankles, there are surely better ways of dealing with it than loosely branding the entire NGO community as Western-backed pariahs?
Despite the invective, the government has stopped short of banishing any NGOs from the country outright. “Even at the height of the war, except for one instance where an organisation made the stupid mistake of printing a certificate with the state and LTTE emblem together after conducting a training course, nobody has been asked to wind up and go,” Hashim noted. “However much there are allegations, there is no proof and no proper investigation. If allegations are to be true, they must be more than rumours.”
The government now says it is strengthening the legislation governing NGOs. It is still not clear what amendments would be introduced. When taken in tandem with the political statements made by members of the government, NGOs fear a crackdown on agencies that were openly – but legitimately, in the pursuit of their own mandate – critical of the status quo. A witch-hunt, so as to speak.
Widespread attention
For instance, Transparency International during the last presidential campaign monitored and drew widespread attention to the blatant abuse of public property in electioneering. Not by any stretch of the imagination – even by the most committed haters of NGOs – could this be considered “against the national interest”.
This month, state-owned and other media reported that the finances of TISL (which has had a presence in Sri Lanka since 2002) are under scrutiny because it had allegedly received Rs 180 million in foreign funds since January 2009 from Western countries including Norway, Sweden, and the United States. TISL says Rs 180 million is the total funding they received from December 2002 but that this detail has been omitted by the government.
So would the proposed amendments to the Voluntary Social Service Organisations (Registration and Supervision) Act be designed to take down organisations that violate the government’s unique definition of “sovereignty” and “democracy”, among other concepts?
Dr Upananda Vidanapathirana, the secretary to the ministry of internal administration, says not. In an interview with this newspaper last week – during which time he spoke with the proposed amendments open in front of him – Vidanapathirana declined to give details of the legal changes that have been suggested. He said they have not yet been presented to the ministerial subcommittee on NGOs which is presided over by Prime Minister Wickremanayake and which sat only once since being set up last year.
“The NGO sector is important and can do enormous service if it understands government aspirations and policies,” Vidanapathirana said. “No government in the world allows any NGO to function against government policies in a democratic framework.”
Why addtional legislation for NGOs?
Why is the government drafting additional legislation to govern NGOs when it already has recourse to a host of other laws including the Exchange Control Act, the Penal Code and the Voluntary Social Service Organizations (Registration and Supervision) Act and its 1995 amendment?
Why would new laws be required when stringent reporting mechanisms are already in place to ensure that NGOs stick to their mandate and observe the law? What would the new amendments contain that isn’t already a part of Sri Lankan law?
The 1995 amendment even allows the government to remove and replace the board of directors of any NGO if “there is evidence to support any allegation of fraud or misappropriation made against a voluntary organization and the Minister is satisfied that the fraud or misappropriation is of such nature as would affect the financial management of the organization and that public interest will suffer…”
“I can’t understand why they want to go further than existing legislation,” said Firzan Hashim of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies. “By January 25 every year, all INGOs and NGOs have to submit an action plan for the whole year to the NGO secretariat. Every quarter, too, they have to submit quarterly reports with financial status and details of programmes. There is a good monitoring mechanism. If there are any issues with your action plan, the ministry can get back to you saying this is not what you should be doing. There is also provision to cancel your NGO licence or to refuse renewal.”
But Dhara Wijayatilake, secretary to the ministry of plan implementation, says additional laws are needed “to help us and to help them”. “The NGO secretariat needs to be empowered to do their business,” she said. “We have an electronic system through which we capture the contribution of NGOs to the government called e-DIMS. We have been asking NGOs to feed the information in but they are not responding, are ignoring or not entering data. There is a training programme now to show NGO personnel how to enter data. We invite many, they say they are coming and half don’t come.”
“What I can tell you,” she said, “is that there is an attempt to have a bill and we are very anxious to have regulatory regime in place.”
Dr U Vidanapathirana, secretary to the ministry of internal administration which is in charge of non governmental organisations, insists that, “it is very clear the existing law is not adequate to deal with NGOs”. He said three aspects were being looked at: registration; monitoring of performance; and the control of activity that contravenes government policy.
Since all this already falls within the ambit of existing law, it can only be assumed that the government is looking at introducing sanctions for ‘bad behaviour’.