Save the Children and The British Council registration cancelled in Pakistan
Islamabad, Pakistan: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) on Friday finally canceled registrations US based Save the Children and UK based The British Council. Total 23 NGOs have been cancelled and most of them are from United States. Pakistan Government gave more then three chances to NGOs to furnish their accounts and audit reports but SECP got nothing proper from top international NGOs, claimed sources in ministry.
According to Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Interior, the action against the foreign NGOs was taken during evaluation of documents and accounts as part of implementation of the National Action Plan (NAP). Both above mentioned NGOs had no proper audit system, account details even full list of its full time and half time employees, claimed sources in ministries.
According to SECP that officially operates as watchdog of all private and non-government organisations, these organizations have repeatedly failed to submit their audit accounts despite several notices.
The NGOs whose registrations have been canceled include Save the Children, Al Haya Trust, War Child, The British Council, American Institute for Research and Behavioural Sciences, Global Partner, Global Relief Foundation and Overseas Development Corporation.
Sources claimed foreign NGOs failed to provide record that why payments were released to some people who were not on their salary statements ?
Intelligence agencies in Pakistan believed that these organizations were harbouring “agents” by giving such payments and these agents were working against the country (Pakistan). It may be mentioned that Pakistan had tremendous pressure from Department of State of United States and Save the Children was allowed to work in Pakistan but only in two provinces when Pakistan had extreme pressure from United States. However, intelligence agencies and special committee working on NGO kept working and sent all record to SECP for financial forensic process.
