As a result of the Punjab government requiring all non-profit organizations (NPOs) in Punjab to register with the Punjab Charity Commission under the Punjab Charity Act 2018, approximately 2,500 NPOs have registered with the Punjab home department.
The move had come as an effort to meet Financial Action Task Force (FATF) requirements. It entails that NPOs can not collect charity until NPOs register with Punjab Charity Commission.
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Around 5,300 NPOs had applied for registration with Punjab Charity Commission. The registration of the remaining 2,800 NPOs is under process, a national daily reported.
Before the enactment of the charity commission, nearly 30,000 NGOs were registered under the Societies Act, Trust SECP, and Social Welfare Department.
The FATF suspected that that unregistered NPOs could be exploited by terrorists and thereby recommended mandating their registration with the provincial government. Now, as per sources, the Punjab government is monitoring all NPOs working in the province.
The Charity Commission Act has come as part of the process to eradicate money-laundering, terror financing, and monitor NGOs.
Previously, if an NGO was registered with the Societies Registration Act, 1860, its registration could not be canceled under law, and the home department had no power to take any action against the NGO either.
However, now with the new act, the government can monitor the source of funding for the NGO, take account of its annual audit, and monitor members of boards of NPOs and NGOs (non-government organizations).
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Now the government can also deregister non-functional NGOs, and the Punjab government has already done so for 22,000 non-functional NGOs out of a total of 30,000 registered in the province. As per news reports, around 8,000 NGOs are functional in Punjab.
The provincial government has also confiscated properties of these deregistered NGOs, including schools, colleges, hospitals, dispensaries, seminaries, and ambulances of Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) and Falah-e-Insaniyat (FIF), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), the newspaper reported.
Now, with the new regulations in place, the government is also monitoring shrines, mosques, and seminaries in the province effectively.
