Qatar’s Regulatory Authority for Charitable Activities (RACA) issued 3,483 licences to local charity and humanitarian organizations for collecting donations and implementing charity projects during first five months of this year.
Ninety-four percent of the total licenses were issued to implement various developmental, social, educational and humanitarian-related projects in Qatar and other countries from January till May, 2016.
Campaigns for collecting donations for certain causes and local social activities accounted for three percent, followed by cash charity boxes and donation collectors who took two percent.
The remaining one percent licences were issued for other miscellaneous purposes. The figures were posted by the Authority on its twitter account.
The non-governmental charity and humanitarian organisations operating in Qatar remitted over QR274m donations from Qatar to the beneficiary countries during first five months of this year, said RACA. According to the Qatari Law, collecting donations without prior permission from RACA for any purpose is a punishable act.
RACA said it referred several individuals to security agencies for collecting donations without taking permission from the Authority.
The violators face up to one year in jail and a fine of QR50,000 or one of them.
There are 14 charity organizations registered under RACA and authorised for collecting donations. The authority has urged the donors to make donations to the authorised charity organizations. The donors were also asked to ensure the donation collector is an authorized agent of a charity organization by checking his ID card. "And do not forget to collect receipts. In case of suspecion, the donors can call RACA on the hotline 16010," it said.
Twenty-nine respondents to a survey said that they did not know that the collectors of donations required a licence. The survey was conducted by RACA in May this year. In another survey, 71 percent respondents said they did not follow up their donations to ensure it reached the deserving people.
