The council for the voluntary sector should be partly or wholly elected by the groups themselves, making it more democratic, Commissioner Kenneth Wain has said.
This is one of two recommended “fundamental changes” to the Voluntary Organisations Act listed in his annual report for 2012 tabled in Parliament earlier this week.
“In my experience, the council doesn’t feel empowered by the sector to speak on their behalf,” the Voluntary Organisations Commissioner explained to Times of Malta.
He had words of high praise for the way the council worked, which was “very much in touch with the voluntary community”.
However, having a council that was partially elected by voluntary organisations would follow the “same line of thinking that inspired the Government this year to change the composition of the Civil Society Committee within the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development”.
The report highlights that election to the MCESD committee is restricted to the members of voluntary organisations registered with the Commissioner. “These provisions are encouraging,” the report said.
The other recommendation, which has often been raised by Prof. Wain, is changing the law and making it compulsory for all voluntary organisations to enrol.
Prof. Wain pointed out there were a number of enrolled organisations that were accountable but “then a huge part of the sector is not”. Registering with the commission increased accountability and transparency and “this should be across the board”.
Enrolling also made it “fairer and safer for everyone,” he said.
The report slams the lack of transparency as “there is no legal assurance the non-enrolled organisations are operating honestly and within the financial laws – even when these receive public funds”. This created a deficit of public accountability, which damaged the sector as a whole.
He also criticised the ongoing impasse with the ecclesiastical authorities over the lack of enrolment of Church organisations, dating to 2008, which demanded complete exemption from the law while “enjoying the same access to public funds and other Government benefits and privileges” reserved for those enrolled. The lack of agreement led to an unprecedented number of ministerial exemptions from the Voluntary Organisation Act in 2012 mostly involving Church organisations and other “free-riders notwithstanding my consistent complaints that these further undermined the law’s credibility”.
He expressed his dissatisfaction with the Government’s “lack of transparency” in the way it ran and operated the schemes and policies for the voluntary sector “the operation of the NGO Project Selection Committee, Good Causes Fund, Overseas Development Aid, Eco-Gozo and Public Broadcasting Services”.