Matter of money

After the recent earthquake, millions of dollars in relief aid was received by the Nepal government and various INGOs involved in Nepal. Even though we never shy from criticizing the lack of effort of the government after the quakes, there are numbers and statistics that show the effort from the government was quite effective and helped save thousands of lives all over the country. On the other hand, the INGOs also received a huge amount of money for the relief efforts but the question aries, 'where did the money go?'


The Social Welfare Council (SWC)'s decision to bring financial transactions of all INGOs under government banking system, in my view, is the right thing to do. The government's relief effort, according to reports, was carried out with a budget of about 50 million dollars. In contrast, INGOs received hundreds of millions of dollars and they have not accomplished anything that you would think could be done with that sort of money in the time of crisis. Wouldn't there be any results to show for us if the money was properly utilized?

Bringing the financial transactions of INGOs under government banking system would mean that there will be audits of the organization's transaction and we can see where the money is being spent. When all transactions of INGOs are made transparent, it will  hold them accountable. If they are found to be involved in financial embezzlements, what is the point of having them here when they are not working for our betterment but are making profit in our time of crisis?

INGOs that are here to serve the people would not cause any major problem if the audits are carried out properly. It would also display which organizations are working as advertised and which are not.

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