‘Ministry drafting law to address donation collection through social media’

AMMAN — The Ministry of Social Development is currently preparing a draft law to address a new trend of unlicensed donation collection through social media, an official said Sunday.

“The ministry is working on creating a new legislative procedure that regulates donations, as the current regulations were set in 1957,” the ministry’s spokesperson, Fawaz Ratrout, told The Jordan Times over the phone.

He added that the ministry observed on Facebook and Twitter, as well as television channels, that unofficial entities were offering services of collecting donations and distributing them to the poor.

“These entities must obtain official licences from the ministry,” Ratrout said, adding that unofficial channels of donations do not guarantee delivery of the assistance to those in need.

Last year, the Public Security Department (PSD) warned against fake campaigns and advertisements on social networking sites that solicit donations to help Syrian refugees in the Kingdom.

The PSD urged those wishing to provide in-kind or cash assistance for Syrian refugees to send their donations through official entities or licensed local and international NGOs to avoid falling victim to fraud. 

At the time, the authorities arrested three suspects who reportedly defrauded two Arabs out of $2,000 each through a social media campaign to allegedly collect donations for Syrian refugees.