THE non-government organisations will have to get approval from the NGO Affairs Bureau to undertake any project and implement it with foreign donations after the passage of a proposed law on foreign grants, as per reports of local dailies.
The Cabinet at a meeting on Monday gave the nod to the draft of Foreign Grants (Voluntary Activities) Regulation Act 2014 that seeks to empower the NGO Bureau under the Prime Minister’s Office to inspect, monitor and assess the NGO activities and cancel registrations for violation of the law.
Under the proposed law, no NGO will be able to undertake any project and implement it with foreign donations without the approval of the NGO Affairs Bureau. As per the new law, in the application for registration, an organisation must clearly mention the sources of the funds and areas of spending. The registration will be given for ten years, but the government can cancel the registration anytime in case of any violation of the law. An NGO can appoint a foreign consultant or expert upon taking security clearance from the Bureau and the Home Ministry, the law said.
As per the law, the NGOs will have to keep their foreign contributions in a mother account of a designated bank, publish annual reports after audit of the accounts and submit those to the Director General of the NGO Affairs Bureau. Any violation of the law would be considered as an offence and punishment will be applicable depending on the nature of the offence. Warning, cancellation of the registration and penalty would be the punishment for any administrative irregularities.
While the proposed regulations seem well intentioned it is quite clear that these are attempts to keep all the NGOs in line with the government’s approved activities. Both Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) and Ain o Shalish Kendra (ASK) are NGOs which have been openly critical of the activities of governmental organsiations in the past. It is not impossible to presume that the tightening of these regulations are yet another attempt to keep the NGOs like TIB and ASK at bay who do not readily see things in the same eye of the government.
