NGOs refer to organisations that are not part of government and also not conventional for profit businesses. Most of these organisations pursue wider social aims and are mainly owned by individuals.
However there have been wide spread of reports on how many of these NGO owners misappropriate funds donated to them for specific projects. Some of the owners personally fund their organisations but a countless number of them in the country depend on donor and humanitarian support from volunteers both home and overseas.
Volunteers who donate to some of these NGOs can do the monitoring of their monies given out directly so as to make sure they don’t end up in people’s pockets than for projects intended for. Such cannot be said for foreign donors all the time. It therefore begs the question of who monitors their activities and to an extent their financial activities.
There surely must be a financial reward in there for coordinators of these NGOs for them to springing up across the city like that? Co-ordinator for the Attukwei Art Foundation, an NGO in Accra, Mr Serge Attukwei thinks otherwise. He said: “I don’t think many are in this noble venture to make money, it’s all about selflessness and helping out the needy in society”.
It must however be said that many of these organisations are on a noble course. Several of them have packages designed in complementing government’s efforts in helping the less fortunate in society.