Living in Peru : your everyday companion

By Hector Villalobos
For El Comercio

The Peruvian International Cooperation Agency (APCI for its initials in Spanish) presented the results of its annual audit plan for 2009. One of the main conclusions is that 34 percent of the entities that receive international aid committed irregularities.

The executive director of the APCI, Carlos Pando Sanchez, pictured here, said that among the irregularities is the misuse of the facilities, submission of false information, misuse of a resource or its application for a different purpose and a failure to submit documents.

Among the entities with irregularities are 27 Peruvian NGOs, four foreign organizations and three institutions receiving grants.

In total, the APCI audited one hundred entities. Sixty six of them presented no irregularities. The remaining 34 are the ones involved in these alleged violations.

Pando Sanchez emphasized the word "alleged" because these NGOs are still in an administrative process and have time to present their discharges. If their responsibilities are confirmed, they would be punished with an admonishment, a temporary suspension or fines that could reach S/.180,000, according to the seriousness of the offense.

Pando Sanchez explained that, under current regulations and a Constitutional Court ruling, the APCI can only control the international aid that comes from public sources, either from countries or multilateral organizations (IDB, World Bank, etc.). It cannot do the same with the donations from private sources, except those subject to state tax benefits. Nor can it declare the definitive cancellation of the organizations. The amount of aid from public sources to our country last year reached about US$ 130 million. The amount handled by the audited institutions was of US$ 13 million, that is, 10% of the total.

NGOs in Peru by numbers On December 31, 2009, there were 2,726 NGOs working on development projects. 979 are properly registered. The remaining 1,747 do not. 232 foreign entities of international cooperation are registered in Peru. 661 Peruvian NGOs presented their annual statement for the period 2008-2009 to the APCI. 85 foreign institutions did the same, as well as 60 public entities.

The annual ranking
Peruvian NGOs with the largest budgets in 2009 was led by the Centro de Estudios y Promoción del Desarrollo, with a total of US $6,010,677. Next are the Solaris Peru Association (US $5,957,700), the Peruvian Society of the Red Cross (US $5,719,518) and Cáritas del Peru (US $5,609,762).

The Work and Family Institute, belonging to the wife of President Alan García, Pilar Nores, is in the eleventh position. The budget implemented by this institution increased by 403% from 2008 to 2009.

As for foreign institutions, the first place is occupied by Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE), with US $24,134,707.

Pando said that in the past couple of years, foreign cooperation in Peru reached nearly US $500 million, but estimated that this year the figure will be lower due to the international financial crisis and the improvement of the economic indicators of our country.

(Click here to read about another report on foreign NGOs in Peru, delivered by COEECI.)

Translated from Spanish by Diana Schwalb


tags : foreign migrations immigrations NGOs Peru

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