PUTRAJAYA: The Youth and Sports Ministry will restructure the funding for youth non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
Its minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman said from now on, funding priorities would be given to targeted activities and programmes carried out by the NGOs, instead of paying for their administration cost.
By doing this, he said, more NGOs would receive funding for various youth programmes which would benefit more people.
Previously, Syed Saddiq said most of the RM20 million to RM30 million funding were given to three or four NGOs.
“We hope from now on, the money allocated will be given to targeted youth programmes such as Bottom 40% (B40) programmes, which are hoped to reach out to many people, instead of being used to pay the salaries of the NGO leaders.
“For these NGOs, on the other hand, they have to reduce their dependency on government funding. They are even called ‘non-governmental’, therefore they shouldn’t fully rely on the funds provided by the government,” he said at the ministry’s monthly assembly and town hall session today.
Syed Saddiq also stressed that the funding would be transparent.
“Not only the funding, I also want their elections to be transparent. There are big numbers of NGOs that establish ‘ghost’ elections so that they can elect a leader and receive a funding for it,” he added.
Syed Saddiq also said the ministry would train these NGOs towards self-sustainability in hopes of reducing their dependency on government funding.
He said the ministry was also moving towards youth empowerment whereby more efforts would be taken in several aspects such as their quality of life and employment opportunities.