Some NGOs try to change Azerbaijan's constitutional system through donor funding

Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 19 Trend: Not all non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have transparent activity in Azerbaijan, head of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration's Department for Work with Law Enforcement Agencies Fuad Alasgarov said in an interview with ‘Azerbaijan’ newspaper. "I would like to cite some facts,” he said. “National and International Research Center” public association has received about 358,000 AZN upon nine grant agreements within several years. In accordance with the legislation, the grant agreements must be submitted to the Azerbaijani Ministry of Justice for registration. However, the above-mentioned organization has registered only two of nine grants." "The Institute for Peace and Democracy can be cited as another example,” he said. “The head of this organization Leyla Yunus has withdrawn huge funds in various currencies from the account of the "Azerbaijani women for peace and democracy in the Caucasus" non-governmental organization", while not being its founder. She used the withdrawn funds for her own purposes for five years." He said that the measures on ensuring the transparency must cover not only the public sector but also the civil society institutions. “Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on "Measures improving rendering the e-services to the non-governmental organizations" on November 20, 2013,” he said. “Its goal is to improve rendering the e-services to NGOs and to simplify their activity and relations with various state organizations. The decree also envisages the creation of the e-information system "Individual e-window" to render the services to NGOs.” He said that there are also other violations in this sphere. "According to the available information, some donors allocate the funds to the non-governmental organizations in cash,” he said. “Thus, these funds are not registered as grants. In these cases, the NGOs do not pay taxes from the received assets.” Alasgarov said that the experience of Azerbaijan and a number of neighboring countries shows that while receiving grants from the donors, some NGOs, after receiving grants, use it not for development of civil society, but forced change of the country's constitutional system. "In some cases, foreign donors are funding some organizations deliberately,” he said. “They drive them to illegal activity that roughly violates the laws, stability in the country. We can conclude that some foreign organizations are charged with organizing the anti-state activity of some individuals and organizations by allocating them funds, rather than developing of the civil society institutions.” Story still developing Follow us on Twitter @TRENDNewsAgency