Sean Nero

Of­fi­cials of non-gov­ern­men­tal and com­mu­ni­ty based or­gan­i­sa­tions at­tend­ing yes­ter­day's T&T NGO Pro­fes­sion­als Con­fer­ence 2012, held at the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad left the sem­i­nar stunned on learn­ing they fall un­der the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act which makes them an­swer­able to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. This was be­cause their or­gan­i­sa­tions were gov­erned by an act of Par­lia­ment.

Dur­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion of Ster­ling Bel­grove, di­rec­tor of the Rose Foun­da­tion with the theme: Who's In Charge Here? Gov­ern­ing A Suc­cess­ful and Ef­fec­tive Or­gan­i­sa­tion, par­tic­i­pants learned, "It was nev­er in­tend­ed for it to be so, but in a slight in the law you come un­der the In­tegri­ty Leg­is­la­tion."

"So the di­rec­tors of or­gan­i­sa­tions in­cor­po­rat­ed by an act of Par­lia­ment, they should be fil­ing their In­tegri­ty re­turns." Bel­grove added: "Now here is what, be­cause it is po­lit­i­cal sui­cide, they have not been pur­su­ing it. But re­mem­ber, if it is the law, then you have to com­ply to the law. What does it take to in­voke the law? And when the law is in­voked, then what is like­ly to be your po­si­tion?"

Bel­grove added: "No one with­in the Gov­ern­ment of T&T knows to whom an or­gan­i­sa­tion in­cor­po­rat­ed by an act of Par­lia­ment re­ports. Not even the par­lia­men­tary sec­re­tari­at can tell you that! The Om­buds­man can­not tell you that. No­body knows. You can­not re­port to the Reg­is­ter Gen­er­al, be­cause you're not un­der the Reg­is­ter Gen­er­al. It's a headache for the Gov­ern­ment be­cause we have nev­er paid at­ten­tion to who these or­gan­i­sa­tions re­port to, but they do know they fall un­der the In­tegri­ty Leg­is­la­tion."

He made it clear that be­ing a not-for-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion did not mean their or­gan­i­sa­tion had to be poor and there was noth­ing wrong with them hav­ing healthy bot­tom lines, cit­ing that such or­gan­i­sa­tions should have prop­er busi­ness mod­els, re­spon­si­ble man­age­r­i­al prac­tices and ac­count­abil­i­ty safe­guards.

"This is what we have a chal­lenge with in T&T. We are a not-for prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion. We poor. So we are not sup­posed to be rich and wealthy, but not-for-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tions is part of what we call so­cial en­ter­prise. We must en­gage in so­cial in­vest­ment. We have busi­ness par­a­digms (and) busi­ness mod­els.

There must be a re­turn on in­vest­ment whether its qual­i­ta­tive or quan­ti­ta­tive. How are we go­ing to build the or­gan­i­sa­tion and how are we go­ing to pro­vide for it. We have to shift the par­a­digm from say­ing we poor and we (are) sup­posed to be beg­ging. The cap­i­tal in the not-for-prof­it sec­tor glob­al­ly right now is US$60 tril­lion," Bel­grove said.

He said all NGOs and CBOs were pub­lic trust or­gan­i­sa­tions and held the trust of the peo­ple they serve and were ac­count­able to the pub­lic of T&T. It is the pub­lic, he said, who was in charge of our or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Bel­grove said: "We are sim­ply trustees of the pub­lic good. We are act­ing as agents for so­cial good. We are re­al­ly en­hanc­ing and man­ag­ing the com­mon pool re­sources that is sup­posed to be for the good of all. Now I know if we were to do an au­dit in T&T, this yard stick would see a lot of or­gan­i­sa­tions go­ing out of busi­ness.

"So when we talk about a Civ­il So­ci­ety Board, glob­al­i­sa­tion is dri­ving that. There is go­ing to be a set of pro­to­cols and some au­dits that is go­ing to val­i­date NGOs and CBOs in T&T. Yet as a sec­tor, we are not very vig­i­lant in re­al­ly pay­ing at­ten­tion to what this means for us and if we are caught nap­ping a lot of NGOs and CBOs will fold up and ride out in­to the sun­set."