House of Representatives Adopts Government Bill on Regulating Fundraising and Aid Distribution for Charitable Purposes

The House of Representatives adopted, on Monday, July 18, 2022, Government Bill 18.18 on regulating fundraising and aid distribution for charitable purposes. The adoption occurred during a legislative plenary sitting chaired by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Rachid Talbi El Alami, with the participation of the Minister of Interior, Mr. Abdelouafi Laftit, and the Minister Delegate in Charge of Relations with the Parliament and Government Spokesperson, Mr. Mustapha Baitas.

The Bill aims to encourage and regulate charitable work by adopting good governance rules based on ensuring transparency in fundraising and aid distribution. The Bill also seeks to implement the role of the State's instruments of follow-up and control in a way that preserves the humanitarian approach of these operations and guarantees their direction at non-suspicious goals.

Government Bill 18.18 centers on several principles, including subjecting all public calls to fund-raising to an administrative pre-authorization procedure, regardless of the means used to initiate the call; limiting the purpose of public fundraising in two exclusive objectives, namely financing the realization of social, humanitarian or solidarity activities or projects, and providing assistance or subsidies to persons in need or distress; and limiting public fundraising calls to civil society associations only.

The provisions of the Bill also include the control of collection and distribution operations. The provisions aim to grant the administration, in general, and the local, and territorial authorities, in particular, the power to follow up and control all the phases of fundraising operations initiated by the public, in addition to aid distribution operations. The provisions also stipulate requiring the party that organizes the fundraiser to provide the administration with a detailed report on the operation's progress and the information that proves the allocation of the total donated funds to the declared goal(s).

This legal text would enable the improvement of the performance of public authorities and other actors from civil society to ensure the achievement of the goals and aims sought by these humanitarian and solidarity initiatives.