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Rough evaluation of the civic sector

"Money laundry," "fifth-columnists," "officers of foreign interests" - are the stereotypes "attached" to the NGOs and create the "bad image" of the civic sector in Macedonia. Such and similar qualifications are always in the mouths of certain journalists or experts who are themselves activists or members of the managing boards of some civic organizations.

By Gonce Jakovleska

On the other hand, none of them can say who they have precisely in mind when they say "money laundry," who they qualify as an "officer of foreign interests." Or maybe, they do not know, but if it is in fashion to give such "compliments," then strike them all! Recently, in the weekly magazine Capital, there was a research on the "Incorrect work of the NGO sector" [in English], financed by several organizations, representatives of the same sector. Excellent! Finally someone will do some research instead of giving some rough evaluations. Unfortunately, the admiration lasted as long as it took me to get to the page where its results were given. Because - there were no results given. Again, there were only some rough evaluations.

The conclusion that civic organizations report only to the donator is nothing but not knowing how the sector functions. The civic associations, as legal entities, report to the public revenue office through their final calculations, which can send its inspectors at any time to control the work of the civic associations. The Macedonian National Bank through its officers, controls the currency operation of the civic associations. The donator does that through the special reports that include financial reports. And finally, part of the civic associations, because of the donators' requests or their own needs, engage special auditors who revise their financial reports.

"The "experts" in the "research" have a special role. They are always consulted and conform the authors suspicions, but their names cannot be seen anywhere, as well as the names of the organizations that work incorrectly. The author has probably come across some of the organizations' names that work incorrectly, for example those of the "crown witness," the accountant Snezana, who is a collaborator in the criminal action.

The next episodes of the "research" are more concrete, they focus on one international and one domestic organization. But why then, the "research" is not called, for example: "Incorrect work of the Macedonian Red Cross and UNHCR"?! What for all those rough evaluations and imagined experts in such a clear mission? Why do the qualifications aimed (by the author) for this two organizations, have to be applied to the whole civic sector?! I hope that in future, the research journalism will deal with the results that the civic associations accomplished and which are of interest to this country.