Daily Times

Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif has met many onerous challenges since he came into power; he inherited a financial crisis and monetary inflation, electricity shortage and generation issues, terrorist activities in the country and Operation Zarb-e-Azb, the opposition’s continuous, challenging position, not to mention the dharna (sit-in) episode, and now the Karachi operation, which is a complex amalgam of all the problems mentioned above. One dimension of financing terrorism, which is more visible in Karachi than the rest of the country but present nationwide, is terror financing through charity money. Charitable institutions are either backed by religious organisations or political parties. The majority of charity organisations are doing a fine job for the country and the welfare of the people but there are a few, extremely venomous, political and religious parties’ sponsored charitable institutions which are directly or indirectly involved in terror financing. It is a difficult decision for any politically elected government to start a grand operation against the exploiters of charity money because any corrective action against a political or religious party is bound to be translated into alliance-loss or vote-loss.
Misappropriations and abuse of charity money is a new dimension of economic terrorism. Many banned outfits, over a period of time, have managed to grow stronger than ever because of heavy financing primarily tapped by exploiting religious sentiments. Pakistanis, though, are religiously moderate compared to Iran and Saudi Arabia; they have a strong love for religion that is why only the slogan of religion, not the end use of their money, is sufficient for them to invest in the hereafter.
The recently started operation against terrorist outfits has revealed a variety of methods employed by them for their funding ranging from money laundering and collection of skin hides to finance proscribed activities. Pakistani citizenship puts this responsibility on our shoulders so as to ensure the right use of our donation money. Unfortunately, the system of Zakat collection by the government (now being revamped) in Pakistan could never meet the desired standards, which propelled the mushroom growth of charity receivers in the country. The second issue related to these organisations pertains to their account auditing. There is hardly any charity receiving organisation that maintains due auditing by accredited chartered accounting firms.
The government has devised a two-pronged strategy to counter the expected misuse of charity money. It includes, as a first step, mass awareness in order to educate the people about the issues with unmonitored charitable institutions. The government has launched a full-fledged intelligence-based operation against religious and political entities involved in collecting and misusing charity money. In the words of Lee Wolosky, a former National Security Council official in the US, “There are nefarious charities and there are good charities with nefarious people working for them.” This is very much applicable in Pakistan and weeding out ill-intentioned charities from the benevolent ones is indeed an arduous task.
Pakistan, under the leader ship of Nawaz Sharif, is now being elevated to new heights of economic prosperity and financial independence. In order to reap the benefits of progress it is extremely important to have domestic peace and stability, which cannot be achieved without uprooting terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. The Karachi operation and alleged reports of RAW’s involvement in harbouring and promoting terrorism in Pakistan has added sensitivity and suspicion to the issue of terror financing.
In the holy month of Ramzan, when a majority of Muslims pay Zakat and make other financial contributions to earn good deeds, it is all the more important for them to be aware of the end use of their money. Pakistan is fighting a decisive battle against the terrorists that, now, is in its final phase and is truly a battle for Pakistan’s survival without the option of defeat. Therefore, let us make our country safe, strong and prosperous by sharing a common vision and joining hands with all positive efforts of our government to strengthen our nation. Our oath of patriotism, at this stage, requires us to play our role, collectively and individually, by supporting only those organisations that have been proscribed by the government. We must make it a religious compulsion on ourselves to report any dubious financial transactions. It is easy to defeat a country but impossible to defeat a nation with one vision and one voice.

The author is a director PID