“This amount of money included the once-off payment to all non-profit organisations for the implementation of minimum norms and standards for service delivery.

“In this financial year the department will increase the subsidy by 6 percent to non-profit organisations across all programmes,” she said.

The allocation to non-profit organisations is distributed among several department programmes such as youth, people living with disabilities, the elderly and others.

Thusi said that in 2012/13 the department would be embarking on a compliance audit as part of transformation that aimed at increasing the effectiveness of non-profit organisations and improving their capacity.

“I wish to let this house know that resulting from this audit, the department will not hesitate to take appropriate steps against those non-profit organisations that are found not to have used the money for the intended purpose”, she warned. She said her department was also planning the non-profit organisations summit in this financial year.

“The intended objectives will cover non-profit organisations’ operations ranging from general observations about the budget to key development priorities such as education and health,” she said.

She urged the organisations to invest in income generating projects and also become more business oriented in order to escape the funding related challenges faced by many.