And interior ministry’s concerns
Leave it to our able interior minister to create fresh problems instead of resolving existing ones. The needless and unexpected controversy about the NGO Save the Children, for example, especially since the government had not done its homework properly. Since first they were ordered out of the country without notice, then only their Islamabad office was sealed, and now we must wait for the prime minister’s inter-ministerial committee – headed by the equally able Tariq Fatemi – it seems the initial knee-jerk reaction might have owed to some faulty intelligence. And, of course, there was displeasure from Washington which, again, does not put the government in particularly good light.
How clean, or dirty, Save the Children’s hands are remains to be seen. But while the interior minister is taking the subject of foreign funded non-governmental organisations seriously, perhaps he should turn his attention to a far more pressing situation. There are a whole host of seemingly community service organisations – madrassas, relief services, etc – who draw funding from dubious sources in the Middle East. And for decades, not years, they have been busy in sponsoring hatred and even murder inside Pakistan. Some, if not many, of these have also apparently been identified by the government. Yet neither their funding nor their operations have disturbed the interior minister too much. And they continue receiving their monies and carrying out their orders without the slightest interference from Islamabad.
Now, apparently to settle the matter, the government is considering auditing balance sheets of around a hundred thousand NGOs. If it wasn’t bad enough that many thousands such NGOs were busy working without knowledge of the government, we are now told to believe that such an extensive exercise will be carried out by Islamabad. Perhaps it should have reserved its comments, and hasty action, till such research was completed. It does not embarrass Pakistan any less that sensitive government offices are seen taking one step one day and back stepping the next, and that too on apparently very sensitive issues. There is a need to reset not just official priorities, but also how Islamabad deals with them.
