ISLAMABAD, Jan 29: The Pakistan Baitul Mal (PBM) has blacklisted 75 per cent of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) it has been financing for various public welfare projects throughout the country.

Talking to Dawn here on Thursday, the PBM managing director, Brig Sarfraz (retired), said: "After an extensive scrutiny of NGOs, we have found that their activities were limited to paperwork only. Therefore, the PBM board of directors decided in principle to blacklist all of them and request the federal ministry of social welfare to cancel their registration."

He said the PBM had also decided not to let them go scott free and retrieve the money it had given them to undertake certain welfare projects in their respective areas so that in future they should not be able to monopolise other such donor agencies.

"It is really shocking to know that people have started making money in the name of welfare of the downtrodden people for whom organizations like PBM give money and trust them for such a noble cause," Brig Sarfraz said.

In response to a question, he said initially the PBM had selected only registered NGOs. But from now onward it would finance only those civil society organizations which have established a good track record.

It's worth-mentioning here that according to government statistics, at present there are as many as 80,000 registered civil society organizations all over the country and there is no such mechanism at government level whereby they could be held accountable in case they don't abide by the government rules.

Brig Sarfraz said at present the PBM was running 68 rehabilitation centres for child labourers throughout the country in which around 8,000 children were provided primary level education.

He said by the end of the current year, the PBM had also planned to open 10 more such centres in the districts where child labour has been pointed out by the federal ministry of labour. The PBM assists only those children and pays all their educational expenses under its education programme who proved themselves good in education, he said.

Besides this, the dropout students are admitted in the vocational institutions and trained in the areas of their interest so that they could live an honourable life, the PBM chief added.

He also maintained that the PBM was also supporting as many as 153 students at public sector universities and paid all their fees till completion of their studies.