BY

Ruwan Laknath Jayakody

The pot does sometimes call the kettle black. In this peculiar case against non-governmental organizations (NGOs) it has something that is more deep and debatable.

Secretary to the Treasury, Dr. P.B. Jayasundara delivering the keynote address at the recently concluded 2014 Defence Seminar on 18 August to delegates and defence attaches of 66 countries noted that the operation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in non-regulated environments has become a threat to financial management, inclusive development and law and order itself.

President of International Movement against All Forms of Discrimination in Sri Lanka, Dr. Nimalka Fernando questioned the moral authority of Dr. Jayasundara to pass judgment on NGOs when he remains in his present position after being found guilty by the Supreme Court of mismanaging State resources.

Also addressing the said Seminar on ‘defining the nation’s success: a critical examination of the ascension of Sri Lanka’, Minister of External Affairs, Prof. G.L. Peiris while raising concerns about NGOs functioning in the country, claimed that certain NGOs fattened on large inflows of money were attempting to directly intervene and get involved in the governance of the nation and the domestic politics.

Calling the current NGO regulatory framework in place, weak and near non-existent, Peiris outlined the need for a detailed regulatory framework and audit procedures regarding the conduct of NGOs.
“Nebulous phrases like capacity building are bandied by these NGOs whose coffers are filled from foreign funds. We regard this NGO phenomenon to be inimical to the substance of democracy. There should be compulsory duty of disclosure and where the sources of the funding are, what is the quantum, purpose and intention. The fate and destiny of the country remains solely in the hands of the sovereign electorate. There should be legal provisions. Critics when faced with incontrovertible facts state that reconciliation is our Achilles Heel and spout out misery, disenchantment and suffering. It is arrogance if someone thinks that they have a monopoly of wisdom on reconciliation,” the minister commented.
“Prof. Peiris is a liar and shame to the foreign service,” Dr. Fernando raged.

President of the Association for Families of the Disappeared Relatives, Brito Fernando said that Prof. Peiris should read the recent Committee on Public Enterprises report twice to understand the misappropriations and frauds that have taken place at the hands of government servants and ministers, adding that in certain cases the Auditor General had yet to receive reports.

These statements by the big-wigs with an Executive directive issued by the National Secretariat for NGOs, banning NGOS from conducting certain activities (the legitimate activities of holding press conferences, workshops, trainings for journalists and disseminating press releases) since July and new laws which will be brought to make not-for-profit/non-profit organizations (NPOs) presently registered under the Sri Lanka Companies Act No. 7 of 2007, forcibly and compulsorily register at the under the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development with refusals to comply resulted with their bank accounts being closed, fines imposed and obtaining foreign funds being expressly forbidden through financial regulations imposed on banks. It is clear that the Government of Sri Lanka has declared war or something more than a vociferous haka, on local NGOs and NPOs.

In July, activities of the inter-religious reconciliation programme of the National Peace Council came under security forces surveillance in Kandy, Galle and once in the East.

It is clear that something has irked the government enough to send its usually tight-lipped and stiff-upper lipped henchmen manning the country’s finance and planning and the foreign affairs, out from the confines of their familiar glass menageries, to take on these bull headed ‘thorns in their side’ undesirables responsible for constantly upsetting the regime’s delicately posited fragile status quo.

Is it, as always money the motivation for some of these arbitrary acts of the government?

Acting Registrar of Companies, D.N. Ranjith Siriwardene said the intention of the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development was to monitor funding.

TisL is not so, explains Fernando, as “The government gets the most amount of foreign aid and funds, 100% more than the NGOs,” a point concurred by Dr. Fernando who claimed that “NGOs receive only 0.002% of external resources.”

This then is symptomatic of the government’s blasé ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ policy, a ticking time bomb of paranoia, stupidity and tyranny against the necessary evil of the NGOs.

Instead, it would be more pertinent for the government to question may be the actual usefulness of the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA)’s capacity building and outreach monitoring of local government and community based organizations and institutions, public interest litigation and civic media initiatives, research including surveys and advocacy and publication of reports and books, Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL)’s anti-corruption awareness programmes, workshops and training, cartoon and slogan competitions for youth, national integrity awards and building coalitions, advocacy and research, civic engagement and institutional development and publication of books and reports, and the NPC’s advocacy, research, training, mobilization and dialogue, peace awards and publication of reports and books, to name just a few of their activities, detailed more in their financial statements available on their websites.

When queried whether the CPA, TISL, NPC and another NGO were being investigated by the National Secretariat for NGOs, Director cum Registrar of the National Secretariat for NGOs, D.M. Saman Dissanayake said they were not being investigated, adding that “We, however, cannot divulge the names of the four NGOs being investigated currently. The investigations concern internal financial fraud. These are based on information given to us by employees of these NGOs.”

According to Manager – Finance of TISL, Udaya Thuduhena, they had received a total of Rs 339,303,724 for the period of 2004 to 2012, and in 2012 alone Rs 36 million.

‘From 2011 to 2013 we received a figure closer to Rs 171 million and in 2013 our income was Rs 65.4 million’, Executive Director of the NPC, Dr. Jehan Perera said.

Chairman of the Standing Committee on Rule of Law of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) and Convener for Lawyers for Democracy, Lal Wijenayake explained that the BASL was an independent body running thanks to a 15,000 member base.

The massive legal aid project of the BASL which has 20 permanent centres is funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which enters into an agreement with the BASL every three years.
“The government does not fund the legal aid project and we cannot afford it either. The UNDP pays the people employed in the centres. Apart from donations which mostly come in the form of books this is the only outside funding we receive,” he said.

Wijenayake added that the BASL renewed the agreement with UNDP in 2014, and since they were clashing with the government, the accusation that the BASL too has joined the rank and file of the NGOs is levelled at them.

“We are not an NGO. Even with regards to the NGOs the government can monitor them using other methods without interfering with activities of the NGOs. If any irregularities have taken place legal action can be taken. Most NGOs work on specific rights like human rights.

In the past there was no necessity for the BASL to intervene as the President and Parliament earlier did not challenge Supreme Court decisions, people were not killed whilst in Police custody and 1,000 families were not going to be evicted from Wanathamulla without a letter of information. Back in the day such incidents were the exception but now these extraordinary happenings attack the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary which we will fight to protect till the end. This is the pattern of the government,” the BASL remonstrated. Where the Ministry of Justice is concerned, the building of new Court houses like the one in Kandy is from funding obtained from the World Bank (through a huge package obtained during former Chief Justice, Sarath N. Silva’s tenure), the overseas travel and training of judicial officers and Judges is funded by the World Bank, the UNDP and sometimes by the United States Agency for International Development.

Lawyers for Democracy observed that this was a case of having political double-standards.
“The police are the ones who should investigate as to which NGO is dabbling in politics and engaging in financial mismanagement. What about the robbery of funds carried out by the government during the tsunami,” Dr. Fernando said.

She added that her organization was registered as a company and raised money for leadership development, educatory and awareness activities, and that they would apply for grants when the European Union calls for proposals.

“It is the government’s funds that are not proper,” Dr. Fernando remarked.

Executive Director of Rights Now – Collective for Democracy, Sudharshan Gunawardene elucidated that his organization registered as company with members, was adhering to a higher regulatory framework than the National Secretariat for NGOs and therefore saw no reason for any other regulations.

“We are non-profit sharing and our liabilities are limited to our guarantees. Our accounts are audited internally following the Sri Lanka Accounting and Auditing Standards Monitoring Board. We submit annual reports in the form of financial reports, audited financial reports and narrative reports sometimes every six months or once a year. Our donations come from sources and ultimately through the Central Bank and is subject to supervision, scrutinized through anti-money laundering and procedures and methodologies for detecting the funding of terrorism. The government knows our income which comes from outside,” he stressed.

This answer should perhaps satisfy Minister of Mass Media and Information, Keheliya Rambukwella who noted that “we should know and are interested to know about their activities and funding.”
In 2013, by their own admission, Rights Now – Collective for Democracy and their partners received Rs 30 million.

As per the Sri Lankan Government’s report to the Universal Periodic Review in 2012, registration of NGOs and trusts is voluntary, and could be done within the Societies Ordinance, Voluntary Social Service Act and Companies Act and certain NGOs are incorporated in the Parliament.

“We do not perform any social service, engage in any humanitarian or development work. Our work is concerned with human rights and governance. NGOs which register at the National Secretariat for NGOs get the support of the government, but we do not ourselves need their support,” Gunawardene conceded.

Since 1989 we have worked with activities and movements headed by then opposition MP, Mahinda Rajapaksa had also worked with incumbent Minister of National Languages and Social Integration, Vasudeva Nanayakkara in the South, to prevent disappearances, and in 1992 it was Mahinda Rajapaksa who took information about the disappeared to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances in Geneva.

He explained that his organization while protesting the disappearances in the North gets foreign funds for projects like parental awareness, protests and commemorations.

He continued; “We are carrying out the President’s stance and mechanisms and we will also report disappearances under his rule and there is nothing Prof. Peiris or the government can do to stop us. Commissions appointed are failures and one cannot have any faith in them as either they take time to be established and issues like disappearances in the North did not get looked at for a long time and the findings and reports never see the light of day or get halted halfway or gathers dust in the President’s trunk. Only three out of 23 recommendations concerning land return and resettlement made by the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Committee been implemented.”

This is why an international commission is a good thing and we support it, he added.

“Punishments come later after investigations and parents might even forgive the soldiers involved in these everlasting crimes. Parents and especially mothers want to know what happened to their child, whether they are dead or alive. This is why even though we have no faith in the Presidential Commission to Investigate into Complaints Regarding Missing Persons, we told the parents to report to it. We have no problem with the government looking into all organizations to see whether financial fraud and mismanagement has taken place. But this effort by the government is not about that, but a blatant attempt to weaken NGOs. With or without money we will continue but with foreign funds we can go to Mannar for an example in a hired vehicle as is our preference as opposed to going by bus,” Fernando relayed.

The freedom of expression and association (Article 14 {1}), speech, publication, assembly, movement and the right to engage in an occupation of one’s choice are all directive principles of State policy as enshrined in Chapter VI and fundamental rights guaranteed to all both individually and institutionally with equality and in a non-discriminative, non-prejudicial manner in the Constitution of Sri Lanka.

The man or woman who was born free was with purpose condemned. He and she was chained, and when questioned why, democracy is righteous they were told. They constituted, and therein lay their sin – the assertion of will, in that within their daring and folly to comprehend, they had experienced the painful birth pangs of dissent which they hastened to suffer for though might is never right, right is never without might.

Less abstractly and less eloquently put, freedoms exist as long as they are fought for.
All freedoms are relative conditions.For in the apprehension of freedom, thus far the people’s violence may have been civilized, but then again violence indeed knows no bounds. The lust for power is eclipsed and usurped only by the lust for annihilation. Its bounds are blood. Shed.

And as the defanged King Cobra, eventually grows its teeth, the body politic too grows nastier, brutish and short – tempered.

Courtesy:Ceylon Today