Poor-performing NGOs in race for funding

The initiative is marred by rampant nepotism in fund allotment.

ISLAMABAD: The National Education Foundation (NEF) will distribute millions of rupees among the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) here on Tuesday, which continue to ‘monitor’ the basic community education schools (BECS).

Sources in the NEF informed The Express Tribune that most of these NGOs are headed by ‘influential’ people and they shall be allotted funds without any tangible output so far.

Also, some have included ‘ghost schools’ in their monitoring lists, in connivance with the NEF officials, to get large chunks of the largesse.

“After a recent verification conducted by NADRA, more than 300 BECS were found to be non-existent in Balochistan alone, with an almost equal number in Sindh”, said one clearly exasperated official of the NEF, who did not want to be identified.

Sources also revealed that ex-minister education Sardar Assef Ahmed Ali had even directed the NEF authorities to terminate the contracts of all these dubious NGOs.

However, an influential lobby in the NEF actively sought to block the proposal of the former minister. Their efforts seem to be running with a fair share of success now as charlatan heads of some organisations continue to garner funds from the NEF.

Province-wise breakdown

NEF Director Punjab, Faisal Shezad said that there are 130 NGOs, which continue to monitor 3,000 NEF schools in the province.

He, however, maintained that none of the NGOs was being run by any politician and funds are only awarded to the schools after a rigorous performance analysis. “The contract is also renewed on a yearly basis, on the basis of performance alone,” he remarked.

Balochistan NEF director Meharullah said that NEF provincial office has engaged 13 NGOs, who monitor around 259 BEC schools.

Sindh NEF Director Sharaf Ali Shah said that there are 1,100 NEF schools in the province and 40 per cent of these are monitored by NGOs.

However, when asked about the suspicious activities of some, he stressed that no written complaints had ever been received by the Sindh chapter.

“Action is warranted if any written complaints are received,” he asserted.

“Our district offices regularly monitor the activities of these NGOs and submit quarterly reports in this regard,” he added.

In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), provincial chief Karim Shah revealed that the province had 2,655 schools being covered by 58 NGOs. These are in turn responsible for monitoring 80 per cent of the schools.

Shah admitted that the performance of the NGOs had not been completely transparent but maintained that they were still doing a reasonable job, despite late payment of dues.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2012.