Sudan says foreign organizations support political activities

Oct 6, 2006 (KHARTOUM) – A Senior Sudanese official renewed accusations of foreign humanitarian organizations working in the country of violating law, saying they support political activities.

The state minister for humanitarian affairs, Ahmad Mohamed Haroun, has revealed breaches by Western humanitarian organizations operating in Sudan. He said a western embassy had granted an organization approximately 42m dollars, without the ministry being informed, in support to activities that were likely to be political.

This came about during a conference Wednesday organized by the Tayibah Communication Centre in Khartoum, which discussed ways to organize voluntary work.

He added that an interim decree had been passed to organize voluntary work and observations had emerged on procedures and issues about the law on voluntary work.

Head of the organizations at the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Ahmad Mohamed Adam, said there were approximately 1980 organizations registered at the ministry and the support of national work through these organizations was a must with the participation of a national partner.

He also indicated that UN organizations should be included within the civil organizations and their activities. He pointed out that the organizations should be compelled to renew their registration on a yearly basis so that their movements can be monitored.

He added that in the past it had appeared that a single individual had received approximately 450m dollars and an organization had distributed approx 50m dollars to voluntary organizations, a thing which had revealed a blatant interference of some organizations.

He said this situation called for the need to put restrictions on voluntary work.

(ST)