Muscat: While extending a helping hand to the people of Palestine, one should make sure it goes through the official channel which is the Oman Charitable Organisation (OCO) which is the only approved fund collector in Oman, according to the authorities.
"One can send money to the brothers and sisters in Gaza and West Bank through the Oman Charitable Organisation which is the only body which is entrusted with collection of funds for the charity initiative," a source from the OCO said.
Due to regular site maintenance, one can also send through the Jood Charitable platform at jood.om as currently, only donations to Waqf and Zakat Committees are available on the site.
"We apologise for the temporary suspension of our donation service for charitable teams. We're in the process of transferring it to the jood.om which is created for the purpose and one will automatically be transferred to this site upon logging on the OCO website," OCO official said.
The official said the most donated initiatives as of today is for Palestinian causes which include sponsoring Palestinian orphans, Palestinian aid projects, assisting organisations and individuals in Palestine for rebuilding the city and to aid to the people of Gaza strip.
The number of donors who donated through the official organisation has risen to 5,790 for as many as 216,537 initiatives, the official said.
The Jood platform is an electronic platform created to serve charitable associations and teams in the Sultanate of Oman. The platform allows individuals and institutions to donate electronically through secure payment channels.
The launch of the platform came within the framework of employing information and communications technology to serve Omani charitable associations and teams, and to facilitate donors’ access to all volunteer charitable associations and teams in the Sultanate of Oman through a unified platform without the need to visit each association or team separately.
In addition, it also ensures that the donated amounts have been received and it will be sent to the concerned party within seconds via secure payment channels.
Collecting money from the public for any purpose is considered a violation of the law unless a permit is obtained from the Ministry of Social Development, in accordance with the conditions and rules for granting licenses for all money from the public, which were regulated by Ministerial Resolution No. (53/2010).
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