ISLAMABAD, Aug 8: Fifty-six years since its formation, Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS) is yet to make its mark as an independent self-sustaining humanitarian organization despite multi-million funding patronage of the government and international donors, investigations by Dawn show.

The shortcomings in the functioning of the society were also noted by President Gen Pervez Musharraf. A document obtained by Dawn shows that President Musharraf while chairing an extra-ordinary meeting of the Society during December 2003 observed, "...the National Society which has suffered from neglect in the past needs to be revamped/invigorated especially at the grass-roots levels."

Founded on December 20, 1947, by "The Pakistan Red Cross Order" issued by Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the Pakistan Red Cross Society was admitted as member of the League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies on August 18, 1948.

Pakistan Red Cross Society was renamed as Pakistan Red Crescent Society in 1974 and adopted the fundamental principles of serving humanity with impartiality and neutrality.

Sources said that Balochistan governor, who is also president of PRCS Balochistan branch, had proposed that the Society concentrate more on indigenous fund-raising instead of looking towards government donations. He is also said to have asked the society to be "proactive" to disaster preparedness rather than confining itself to relief distribution alone.

Documents show that more than 60 per cent funding of PRCS comes from just two organizations, the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Interviews with international donors revealed that impartiality and neutrality principle of PRCS has come under suspicion in the internal armed conflicts as most of the retired military officials running its affairs have a conflict of interest with their past job and present duty.

Sources said the PRCS did not start its humanitarian and relief activities in the troubled spots of South Waziristan despite the fact that an operation was launched there in October last year with reports of human sufferings regularly appearing from the area. The society is still not present in the troubled spot of Waziristan, said a source.

Documents available with Dawn show that top slots in the PRCS are held by retired military officers including the incumbent chairman Lt-Gen (retd) Jahan Dad Khan, secretary-general Brig (retd) Khalid Kibriya, director special projects Brig (retd) Ilyas, director administration Col (retd) Muhammad Ahmed.

In the provincial headquarters, former uniformed officials also hold important positions. It is learnt that calamity and conflict preparedness has been identified as a top priority issue for PRCS.

Internal PRCS documents show that even after 56 years, the PRCS is yet to have a unified constitution resulting in "lack of integrated cohesive operations on account of semi-autonomous nature of the provincial branches."

The documents show that PRCS has not been able to launch "focussed prioritised programmes." Even though millions of rupees are allocated to the provincial headquarters of the society, the documents show there is "lack of comprehensive rules of business i.e regular monitoring and evaluation of PRCS activities at the branch level."

When the PRCS spokesperson, Rabia Amjad, was contacted for official comments, she refused to reply the questions, saying Dawn did not publish a press release issued by her organization on Saturday.

When the spokesperson was asked if the PRCS had started relief operations in Waziristan, Ms Amjad said, "I am not going to reply to any of your questions. Yesterday we issued a press release and your newspaper did not publish it. Everyone obliges but you don't." Later the spokesperson dropped the line.