KARACHI: The Sindh government has warned more than 4,000 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to get themselves registered by submitting updated financial details and other required documents within a week or face cancellation, officials in the social welfare department said on Wednesday.

Thousands of NGOs are registered with various ministries and departments of the Sindh government, including the departments of social welfare, industries, and cooperative societies. Of them, officials said, more than 12,000 NGOs were registered with the social welfare department.

A meeting presided over by Shamim Mumtaz, adviser to the Sindh chief minister for social welfare, was informed that the ministry had got details of around 8,000 NGOs for renewal of their registration. However, still there were more than 4,000 organisations which had not answered the ministry’s notices sent to them repeatedly.

Move designed to weed out inactive NGOs

Officials said Ms Mumtaz “advised” the errant NGOs to get their registration renewed within a week.

“Their registration will stand cancelled if these organisations fail to apply for the renewal of their registration in time,” she said.

The meeting was told that more than 12,000 NGOs were registered with the ministry, which itself was a huge figure.

Sources in the department said given the resources and capacity of the ministry, it was a gigantic task to accomplish.

“In fact,” said a source privy to the ministry, “they [social welfare ministry] have almost turned it into a place which is dedicated more to the clerical job of maintaining the records of the affiliated NGOs. And, unfortunately, it does not have the required capacity to do this work proficiently as well.”

Before the flooding of NGO culture in the province, it is said, the social welfare department was actively engaged in various fields in which it would offer people jobs and skills through its own limited resources. However, with so many NGOs having filled the spectrum, the performance of the ministry has declined further.

Ms Mumtaz said as per rules it was mandatory for all NGOs to get annual renewal after submitting audit reports.

She said the errant NGOs had been served with notices, but they had failed to submit any reply.

Sources said the renewal of registration was aimed at pruning the organisations which were inactive. This would shed unnecessary clerical burden on the ministry.

Besides, they said, financial details and audit reports were mandatory to ensure transparency.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2017