Minister sees NGOs ineffective
Blames commercial activities, high interest rates and mismanagement in loan disbursement
Social Welfare Minister Enamul Hoque Mostofa Shaheed on Thursday said country's non-governmental organisations (NGOs) could not contribute to alleviating poverty as expected due to their commercial activities, high interest rates and mismanagement in loan disbursement.
“We hoped a lot from them, but they could not deliver,” he said.
He was speaking at a seminar styled 'Food and work for extreme poor: In light of social safety net programmes' at the National Press Club in the city. Solidarity for Extreme Poor, a platform of 11 NGOs and development partners, organised the seminar.
The minister said the conditional loans from the donor agencies to the NGOs are also a factor.
He said, “The NGOs use the fund in unproductive sectors and sometimes misuse and waste it when they follow donor's prescription. So, we always discourage conditional loans.”
“Their effective rate of interest is high. Besides, the borrowers are forced to use the fund according to the direction of NGOs. There is also mismanagement in disbursing loans,” he told The Daily Star.
He also told the seminar that business-centring poverty is continuing although nobody starves in the country. “Now time has come to see whether the number of poor people is increasing or not,” the minister said.
He also rejected claims by the NGOs, saying, “How does the number of people using mobile phones increase if the poverty rate has not reduced?”
The telecommunication industry has gone from zero to almost complete coverage of the country in the last one decade. Currently, there are about 6.6 crore cell phone users in Bangladesh.
The minister also said there should be a guideline to see how the NGOs are working. He also suggested on checking the effectiveness of micro-credit operations.
Hasanul Huq Inu, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on telecommunication ministry, Farah Kabir, country director of ActionAid, and Mohsin Ali, convenor of Solidarity for Extreme Poor, also spoke on the occasion.
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