"The provision that lets organizations to either be companies or NGOs was repealed by NGO Act, 2016 and therefore, there is no leeway of operating like an NGO and then registering as a company," Okello says.
As the NGO Bureau steps up enforcement of the law requiring
all Non-Governmental Organizations to have licences and file annual returns,
the Bureau’s Executive Director Stephen Okello and Executive Director of Uganda
National NGO Forum Moses Isooba say compliance with the law is the way to go.
The Bureau started to bite last month, suspending 54 non-compliant
organizations over lack of licences, operating with expired licences or failure
to submit annual returns.
The suspended organizations include Chapter Four,
Citizens Coalition for Electoral Democracy Uganda -CCEDU, Great Lakes
Institute for Strategic Studies -GLISS, Africa Center for Energy Governance -AFIEGO.
Moses Isooba says they have been telling organizations they work
with that compliance with law requirements is key.
“You have to comply whether
you like the law or not, you have to comply,” he said an interview. “We are
also telling our partners that when you are compliant, then it enables you to
engage with the government from a stronger position.”
To ensure that partner
organizations are compliant, Isooba says the have introduced a regular compliance
clinic which helps them check on compliance status of organizations.
In partnership
with Development
Network of Indigenous Voluntary Associations -DENIVA, Isooba says they
have also introduced NGO quality
assurance certification mechanism which focus on "intra institutional governance” to ensure that organizations are clean and institutionally heathy, as one way to ensure that as a sector they can insulate themselves from any form of
assault.
But organizations such as GLISS
and AFIEGO say they will not register as NGOs. They prefer to remain registered
companies. Godber Tumushabe the Executive Director of GLISS which is a think
tank, says they are not under NGO Bureau.
“We are a think tank, we are not an
NGO and we don’t intend to be one to the extent that if anybody said we have to
be an NGO, we would leave anything that they say is NGO work but they would
have to go to court and prove that its NGO work,” says Tumushabe.
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Tumushabe says that for NGO Bureau writing to GLISS
as an NGO is a case of mistaken identity. He says they have
written to the company registrar seeking clarification on their status. He claims that the NGO Bureau is
no longer an agency that promotes the development of transparent and
accountable civil society, but is rather focused on consistent harassment of NGOs.
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But Stephen Okello says that what the likes of Godber are promoting "is arrogance”
that will be dealt with appropriately.
"The provision that lets organizations to either be
companies or NGOs was repealed by NGO Act, 2016 and therefore, there is no leeway
of operating like an NGO and then registering as a company," Okello says.
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Responding to critics who argue that the ban targeted NGOs in the
human rights and democracy sector, Okello said only four of the 54 closed NGOs
work in human rights and democracy sector. He revealed that many of the
affected organizations are faith based. Okello also says more than 2,300
organizations have been compliant with the law meaning that 54 closed NGOs constitute
only 2.3% of all registered organizations.
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Isooba says NGO Forum is working towards improving government - civil society relationship by debunking false information that always going
around depicting NGOs as anti-government.
Blanshe Musinguzi
Freelancer