The government is preparing a legal instrument that will allow closer monitoring of the funding of non-profit organizations after authorities detected that many of them were apparently receiving funds form terrorist-affiliated individuals and groups.

Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK) head Muhammad Yusuf said the government had drafted a government regulation on the issue.

“The government regulation draft has been submitted to the Law and Human Rights Ministry,” Yusuf said on Thursday, adding that the regulation could be made effective by year-end.

He stressed that tighter monitoring of non-profit organizations was vital, his agency having detected a number of cash transfers from terrorist-related individuals and groups to domestic organizations.

… Meanwhile, a terrorism expert from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Rohan Gunaratna, said that finance intelligence was a very powerful tool in the fight against terrorism. “Tracking money is very important to prevent attacks. Money is the life blood of terrorists,” Gunaratna said.