Culture Minister Dale Butler has warned charities failing to file annual financial reports that they could be stripped of their charitable status.

Mr. Butler told the House of Assembly on Friday that 66 of the Island's 403 registered charities — or 16 percent — were behind in their financial reporting.

He said the most troubling statistic was that 17 of those had not filed financial reports with the Registrar General for more than seven years.

"This is totally unacceptable and steps will be taken to address this," said the Minister. "My Ministry will work in conjunction with the charity commissioners and the Registrar General to review all 17 non-compliant charities and to take appropriate action to remedy this situation withing the limits of the law, up to and including the cancellation of charitable status, if necessary,"

All charities are required by law to submit a statement of accounts detailing all money received and spent for charitable purposes to the Registrar General within six months of the end of each financial year.

Mr. Butler said 52 charities had been delinquent for more than a year and 14 for less than a year.

In February 2008, 50 of the 405 (12 percent) registered charities were delinquent compared to August 2007, when 93 out of 411 (23 percent) registered charities were delinquent.

Mr. Butler said: "I commend the Charity Commissioners and the Registrar General for doing their part to ensure that charities stay within the requirements of the law.

"However, the statistics I have just reported to this honourable House indicate that we clearly have more work to do. It is my goal to ultimately achieve 100 percent compliance by charities.

"As Minister responsible for charities, it is my duty to again urge those charities that are still non-compliant to file financial reports with the office of the Registrar General as soon as possible."

A list of the delinquent charities was not available at the weekend.