Trade Minister warns of ‘sham charities’

TRADE and Industry Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon warned that TT must be wary of “sham charities” which could exploit the very people they claimed to be helping.

Gopee-Scoon made the point in her contribution to debate on the Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) Bill 2019 in the Senate yesterday. She told senators the whole business of NPOs in TT is “big money,” with some $8 billion to $9 billion being provided to those groups last year. She said that did not include the private sector and international donors. Gopee-Scoon said there were 8,000 registered NPOs and “a slew of unregistered ones” in TT. “Risk is high among these NPOs and there are many NPOs which have gone wrong,” she warned.

Gopee-Scoon said sham charities could thrive in an unregulated environment. She cited the More Than Me Academy in Liberia where young girls were raped and the founder of that charity later died of AIDS, as an example. Gopee-Scoon also referred to the Pearl of Hope charity in France, whose leaders were charged with financing terrorism in Syria.

Closer to home, Gopee-Scoon said there were cancer charities in the US where only three per cent of funds actually went to cancer patients. She said most of those funds were pocketed by the charities’ owners and used to fund their children’s education. She opined that if NPOs were properly run in TT, more people would be willing to contribute to their efforts to do good. Gopee-Scoon described claims from Opposition senators Wade Mark and Gerald Ramdeen as the usual hysteria from the Opposition.