Who is to blame for archaic system at NGO secretariat?

Sep 02, 2009

Over the next few Weeks, The New Vision will be running a series on NGOs and how their activities have affected the social-economic arena in Uganda. Conan Businge and Patrick Ogwang write:

Over the next few Weeks, The New Vision will be running a series on NGOs and how their activities have affected the social-economic arena in Uganda. Conan Businge and Patrick Ogwang write:

Piles of thousands of dust-coated files shelved in a boardroom serve as the database for the huge Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) sector in this country. They are stored at the NGO secretariat which is the central point of registration and control for all NGOs. The secretariat is part of the Internal Affairs ministry in Kampala.

In theory, the secretariat monitors billions of money that flow through what it believes are the 7,929 NGOs that operate in Uganda. But the reality is much different.

The real picture
Half of the Uganda’s domestic budget stems from donors, half of which is direct budget support. The rest is indirect through NGOs but there is no developed data base or up-to-date computer records at the secretariat. Instead, there is a room full of aging files that in many cases are far from complete.

The secretariat has only four officers, who were temporarily hired from the immigration department of the internal affairs ministry in 2003. Then there were only 3,000 NGOs, mostly dealing in relief and charities. Most had their own funds with no support from foreign donors.

It recently got a legal officer, after existing for years without one.

How bad is the situation? An investigative team from The New Vision randomly selected 112 files out of the thousands on the shelves and found only about 90 had financial reports. Most did not have annual reports and figures as required. Some of the monitored NGOs had filed information only twice in the last eight years.

Lack of information is so acute that in a number of cases, it is impossible to determine whether registered NGOs are still in operation or not.

More than 50% of the NGOs have never renewed licenses from the time they registered, something they are legally required to do every year.

In other cases, it is impossible to determine whether NGOs are qualified to hold the certificates they obtained, since their files do not include the documents required in order to receive a registration certificate.

Poor funding?
The organisation gets about sh10m monthly for all its operations, from the internal affairs ministry budgetary allocations. This money is supposed to pay board members’ allowances, sensitise the public about its activities and run the affairs of the secretariat. However, Wamimbi says, this money is far too little to run the organisation.

“The secretariat should have monitored these organisations, but this money is not enough. That really reduces the vigilance the secretariat have on monitoring the NGOs, something that would have improved their performance,” she says.

Need of a new structure
The organisation’s Board has written to internal affairs minister, Matia Kasaija, seeking, “Intervention and support to convince the cabinet and public service minister to accept and expeditiously approve the proposed organisational structures, to replace earlier ones made in 2003.”

Wamimbi says if the proposed structure is approved, “It will greatly help change the operations of the secretariat,” since it would have 14 staff members, unlike the four who were appointed in 2003 to run it. Apart from staffing, there is need to revamp the office of the secretariat with enough computers and file storage cabins.

Until a few months ago, the secretariat had no vehicle for carrying out inspections; yet there are thousand of NGOs to inspect.

Where is the problem?
The organisation’s board has not grown at the same pace as their activities. According to Wamimbi, it also does not have enough registry assistants, let alone officials who can monitor and, if necessary, investigate the mushrooming and complex organisations it is supposed to regulate.

In some cases, the secretariat lacks cooperation from NGOs to meet basic challenges. According to Wamimbi, most NGOs, “Do not like having their funds monitored.” Worse still, the secretary to the Board says she does not have control over her own staff members.

“These are immigration department staff, posted to the secretariat and can be called on for other assignments at a given time by my supervisor at the immigration department,” she says.

Some NGO officials have their own complaints about staff at the secretariat. “We are sometimes treated like idiots by the secretariat. Is this a government office,” lamented an elderly man who said he had spent the last five months trying to register his organisation. He had to travel from Gulu every month to check on his organisation’s certificate of registration.

What is to be done?
For close to 13 years, the Secretariat’s Board of Directors has never been renewed. The deputy chairperson of the Board died in 1999 and the post has remained vacant since. According to the law, the Board is supposed to serve for three years and be renewed thereafter.

Under the circumstances, one wonders what fraction of the billions of shillings going for charity work in this country is disappearing into private pockets, on the way to needy beneficiaries?

What is the fate of Ugandan NGOs and the would-be beneficiaries, if the secretariat does not get streamlined in time? Nobody seems to know, not even the agency that is supposed to regulate the sector.
For comments, write to features@newvision.co.ug

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});