The day people shut the tap

This news has been read 11233 times!

On March 31, 2020, I wrote an article under the title ‘Faza’a for Kuwait.’ The article garnered more than 214,000 readers on Al-Qabas alone, which is an exceptional number for a regular article.
Its publication marked a turning point in the march of charity work in Kuwait, or so I see the situation. The article was written after 42 Kuwaiti charity societies decided to launch a fundraising campaign under the slogan ‘Faza’a for Kuwait’, to help the needy who were affected by the closure of activities and the inability to travel after the COVID-19 pandemic disaster brought everything to a standstill.
We in the ‘Human Friendship Society’ refused to join the Faza’a campaign, and it turned out later that we were right in our decision. Fundraising and process of distribution witnessed scandals, a turning point in the history of charity work, we paid some of its price in the Society, but it opened eyes to the practices of some ‘charity’, and many knew the extent of some manipulations (in charity funds) which allegedly went for personal and partisan interests.
The Faza’a for Kuwait campaign at the time succeeded in raising just over nine million dinars, and the amount was much less than expected. Most of the charities intended to keep a reasonable share of the heavy ‘legal commission’ out of the amount raised, and at a rate of no less than 12 and a half percent.
Our personal interference with officials, and our articles prompted the Ministry of Social Affairs to refuse to allow charities to deduct any percentage from that amount for themselves, and to allocate the entire amount for the purpose for which it was collected.
These charities found other ways to keep a proportion of money collected from donations to themselves by spending the amount on purchasing foodstuffs, intended for distribution to the needy, from well-known centers and destinations, and this is what happened in the end, and most of the nine million was wasted.
The Minister of Social Affairs formed a committee to investigate the issue, but after six months no report of guilt or innocence was issued, which favors the first possibility of course.

  • * *
    All these things contributed to a shift in the feelings and opinions of donors towards charities and charity work in general, and this appeared on three occasions: The first was a campaign to raise funds to feed the hungry in some parts of Africa; second was a fundraising campaign for the relief of the victims of the Beirut port explosion and the third a fundraising campaign for the victims of the Nile flood that struck Sudan.
    The charities were surprised by the modesty shown in the area of collecting donations, the size of which was indeed shameful and an indication of the increase in awareness of the donor, and the exposure of the status of some associations used the collected money for reasons well known to all, or greatly exaggerated the deduction from the money collected for the benefit of those in charge.
    On this occasion, we wish the supervisors and those in charge of monitoring charity societies, especially the Minister of Social Affairs to be careful and absolutely certain that some of these associations, overflowing with funds politicized to the core, will not spend any of the associations’ funds to support religious party candidates, especially since they are armed with fatwas from their group that allow them to do so.

    e-mail: [email protected]

By Ahmad alsarraf

This news has been read 11233 times!

Back to top button

Advt Blocker Detected

Kindly disable the Ad blocker

Verified by MonsterInsights