KARACHI – Convener FPCCI Central Standing Committee on Insurance Dr Murtaza Mughal on Tuesday said many public and private sector companies are using Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds for personal and political gains.
CSR policies in many companies are leading to corporate corruption which should be noticed by the concerned quarters, he said.
In a statement issued here today, Dr Murtaza Mughal said that CSR funds which were supposed to help society are being used to please politicians, bureaucrats and near and dear ones.
Many companies spend the funds recklessly to hold music nights, festivals and other useless events in five-star hotels while other entities devote resources for public relation initiatives, unusable donations, sponsorship, performance awards for those who have nothing to show, public relations and other irrelevant activities, he added.
He said that there are many onhire charitable trusts to help companies fabricate CSR spending while whitening of black money has also a common practice.
It has become a common practice that if a company that is obligated to spend Rs10 million on CSR, it writes out a cheque in favour of a trust that works in education, healthcare, or environment protection etc. The so-called trust, after deducting its commission, returns the money to the company, he informed.
Dr Murtaza Mughal said that education scholarships are usually given to the children of influential who can return favours by abusing their powers while such educational institutions are also funded which in turn, allow free education to the company officials.
Some schools established for the elite class deduct CSR expenses from the students which should be noticed and stopped immediately, he demanded.
He said that the government should strengthen CSR laws, make proper audit and reporting mandatory so that misuse of funds could be stopped or take all such funds into its own control to spend it transparently on the poor.
There are a lot of poor in the country and we have seen one crisis after other but many profit-making companies are indifferent to it, he said, adding that insurance companies should also play their role in the betterment of the society.
CSR concept was introduced for betterment but the loopholes are putting the future of the society at stake. The corporations benefit more from CSR than society and its people.
