ISLAMABAD: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has decided to revalidate the licences of all non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and social service entities registered with it.
In a meeting on Tuesday, the commission decided that all the ‘not-for-profit companies’ registered under the Section 42 of the Companies Ordinance 1984 would require to fulfil the basic criteria again.
The matter of streamlining local and international NGOs to avoid any kind of terror funding was also discussed in another meeting yesterday, held in the interior ministry and was attended by officials of the SECP and security agencies.
The SECP is set to start forwarding notices to the NGOs who have failed to fulfil various criteria, including financial audit and other disclosures.
“It has been observed that a number of NGO are either not complying with the conditions imposed under the licence or not complying with legal requirements under the law, such as filing of annual returns with the registrar, submission of annual audited accounts and annual report of the working of the organisation,” said an SECP official.
The commission’s decision to revalidate licences of NGOs is in accordance with the recent government’s stance to prevent money laundering and stop all financing channels for activities of terrorism.
The SECP itself had been sluggish in the past to enforce regulations, as it granted five-year licences under the Section 42, but failed to revalidate them after the lapse of five years.
The not-for-profit companies are required to submit an application for the renewal of their licence along with copies of annual audited accounts, complete profiles of chief executive and directors, statement of work, details of the amount of donations and grants received, statement from chartered accountant that funds/grants/donations were received through banking channels and details of donors.
Published in Dawn, January 1st, 2015
