MADRESSAHS have complained to the government that banks are reluctant to open accounts for them for fear of becoming entangled in a possible illicit activity investigation.

The complaints were shared with the secretary, religious affairs, who conveyed them at a PAC meeting, in the context of an ongoing effort by the government to get all seminaries to register themselves and make disclosures about their source of funding.

The effort includes getting the seminaries to fill out a form requiring them to disclose their assets, number of vehicles and bank account information as well as the sources from where funds will arrive into the account.

There are five Wafaq boards, and at least two of them have reportedly refused to comply with the instructions to fill out the forms. They argue in return that the procedures being demanded of them are cumbersome, and that banks routinely refuse to open accounts for madressahs.

The government has not specified what penalties will apply to those seminaries that do not comply with the new registration procedures, and the issue seems to have reached an impasse.

At this point, it is not clear whether or not the complaints of the seminaries against the banks are valid, but given that Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan has himself stated on record that 10pc of all madressahs could be involved in terror-related activities, without specifying which ones, the banks have grounds to be cautious in dealing with all of them.

How are they supposed to know whether or not a particular applicant belongs to the 10pc that is allegedly involved in terror-related activity? In the absence of proper bank accounts, seminaries here are likely to continue with the existing practice of using individual accounts of people working for them to transact their finances, or to deal entirely in cash.

This complicates the task of tracking and monitoring their funds. It is bad enough that the government has had such a complicated time figuring out how to go about the rudimentary job of registering all seminaries, and acquiring some knowledge of how many are operating around the country.

How are we to expect that the government will be able to conduct higher levels of regulation, such as curricular reform and tracking sources of funding? Clearly, more vigorous efforts are required from the government.

Leaving the entire exercise to be carried out by the religious affairs ministry alone is not going to be enough.

Published in Dawn, April 3rd, 2015

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