ISLAMABAD: The federal government has planned to launch a special system to facilitate the corporate and private sectors to donate to ‘Ehsaas programme’ and help the poor.

This was stated by Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation Dr Sania Nishtar on Wednesday while speaking as chief guest here at the inauguration of 12thannual corporate social responsibility (CSR) Summit-2020 organised by National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH).

This institutional arrangement will be completed in the next three months, she said, adding complete transparency and efficiency will be ensured, she said.

Dr Nishtar advised the philanthropists to wait for another three months to let this special purpose vehicle be launched allowing the government to receive these donations from the private sector and spend them with utmost integrity and honesty on the poor.

She said that a web portal would be launched to ensure transparency in the system and enable the private sector check that the philanthropic donations were spent for the welfare of individuals.

A policy was also being formalised to offer incentives to the corporate sector of the country to encourage philanthropy.

She said 134 different initiatives had been launched under the Ehsaas programme for the welfare of different sections of the needy and disadvantaged sections of the society including orphans and women.

Dr Nishtar said the government was aware of the importance of the private and corporate sector especially in issues like poverty alleviation and social protection of deprived people in the country.

Dr Shafqat Muneer, Research Fellow of Sustainable Development Policy Institute, said the philanthropic contributions being provided by Pakistanis as a nation had always been outstanding as Rs500 billion was being spent annually in the country as charitable donations.

He said these charitable donations would increase manifold if proper policy was introduced in the country binding the corporate sector to contribute donations.

He noted that at present only companies associated with the petroleum industry were bound to spend one per cent of their annual profit to do CSR activities while there was no similar lawful condition for any other industry in the country.

Earlier in his welcome address, NFEH President Naeem Qureshi said the CSR Summit was aimed to thoroughly discuss and appreciate efforts being put in by the corporate sector of the country in the field of welfare and uplift of the disadvantaged people in the country.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2020