Discrimination must stop, NGOs Commissioner says

A harshly-worded annual report by the Voluntary Organisations Commissioner calls for an end to the “discriminatory” situation whereby some large organisations are given state funding despite not being officially registered.

The law on voluntary organisations should apply for everyone if it is to encourage a culture of transparency and accountability, Kenneth Wain, the NGOs Commissioner, said.

In his annual report for 2009, which has just been published, Prof. Wain outlined the difficulties encountered in a tumultuous year where problems arose with Church organisations and the Malta Community Chest Fund, which refused to enrol.

When The Times had questioned the Church authorities what was stopping their organisations from enrolling, a spokesman had replied the Curia was having talks with the Office of the Prime Minister and the commissioner’s legal advisor on the matter.

Prof. Wain pointed out that it was not compulsory for organisations to enrol with the commissioner, but only those that did should qualify by law for state funding.

Despite this, some 30 per cent of the direct government grants last year went to one major non-enrolled Church organisation and about 12.5 per cent were distributed to various other non-enrolled Church organisations, Prof. Wain said. “This is not, evidently, a situation that can continue into 2010,” he said.

He criticised the MCCF, saying it refused to publish the list of beneficiaries of the last edition of the annual charity event L-Istrina. The MCCF, chaired by the President, had in fact revealed the beneficiaries only some months after the event, when the grants were given out.

“This situation with the Church organisations and the MCCF is harmful to the future of the voluntary sector as a whole and requires quick resolution.

“The message that the law applies to some organisations only while others are above it encourages a feeling of unfair discrimination among those who observe it,” he wrote in the report.

He said his job was to apply the Voluntary Organisations Act but this was “difficult to achieve” if the government did not commit itself and supported it with its actions and policies.

“This, regretfully, has not happened in 2009 any more than in 2008. To the contrary, the various letters I wrote and the verbal complaints I made throughout both years... were generally ignored...”

He said all organisations that received state money or assistance through taxpayers’ money and public funds should be publicly accountable “without exemptions”.

His view was shared by the chairman of the Malta Council for the Voluntary Sector, Robert Farrugia, who also wrote in the annual report.

The NGO commissioner’s complaints last year dampened the jubilation that followed the latest edition of L-Istrina – the first time people donated money without prizes having been offered – prompting criticism by the MCCF.

Prof. Wain claimed that the President’s charity had broken the law because it collected money through state assistance in the form of free airtime by Public Broadcasting Services.

The MCCF, however, insisted it had legal advice from the Attorney General that it was not even elig­ible to enrol because of the type of organisation it was.

In his report Prof. Wain also complained about the “very limited” budget of his office.