Govt to allow private sector donations in Ehsaas programme

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation Dr Sania Nishtar has said that the federal government will launch an institutional arrangement in next three months allowing the corporate and private sectors to contribute to the Ehsaas Programme with utmost transparency and efficiency.

Addressing as the chief guest at the inauguration of 12th Annual CSR Summit 2020 organised by National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH), Nishtar said that she has advised philanthropists associated with the corporate sector and willing to donate for the Ehsaas programme to wait for another three months to let this initiative be launched allowing the government to receive these donations from the private sector.

She said that a web portal would be launched under the proposed arrangement to let the private sector know how each penny of the philanthropic donations would be spent for the welfare of the individuals and for the benefit the Ehsaas programme.

“A policy was also being formalized to offer incentives to the corporate sector of the country to offer incentives to the corporate sector on institutionalized basis to do philanthropy,” she said. The SAPM said she had been mandated with the task to come up with the required incentives for the corporate sector to contribute for welfare initiatives of the government like Ehsaas programme.

She continued that the present government had been doing its best to ensure that utmost transparency, where everyone willing to contribute for social protection and welfare of the masses get a level-playing field.

She said that Ehsaas programme comprised of 134 different initiatives for the welfare of different sections of the needy and disadvantaged sections of the society including orphans and women. She said efforts have been made to forge partnerships with the private sector to further these initiatives.

Nishtar said that she was well aware of the importance of the private and corporate sectors as without them the government alone could not carry out such tasks like poverty alleviation and social protection of deprived masses in the country.

Dr Shafqat Muneer, Research Fellow of Sustainable Development Policy Institute, said that the philanthropic contributions being provided by Pakistanis as a nation had always been outstanding as Rs500 billion was being spent annually in the country as charitable donations.

He said charitable donations would increase manifold if proper policy was introduced binding the corporate sector to have CSR contributions. He noted that at present only companies associated with the petroleum industry were bound to spend one percent of their annual profit on CSR activities while there was no similar lawful condition for any other industry in the country.

In his welcome address, NFEH President Naeem Qureshi said that the CSR Summit was being organised to discuss and appreciate excellent efforts being put in by the corporate sector of the country for welfare and uplift of the disadvantaged people in the country.