Lokodo wants faith based organizations under his ministry

By Mary Karugaba

THE minister of Ethics and Integrity has asked Parliament to transfer the powers to register, regulate and monitor faith based organization from the ministry of Internal Affairs to the ministry of Ethics.

Simon Lokodo while appearing before the Committee on Defence and Internal Affairs on Tuesday argued that faith based organizations (FBOs) mainly deal with spiritual and moral issues in society and should be regulated separately.  

All NGOs are registered by the Ministry of Internal Affairs including churches. The committee is currently scrutinizing the proposed NGO Amendment Bill, 2015.

Presented to Parliament last month by the Minister of Internal Affairs Gen. Aronda Nyakairima, the Bill provides for the registration, monitoring of Non-Government organizations. The Bill also establishes a board to regulate and monitor the activities of the NGOs among others.

"Faith has nothing to do with governance and service delivery and therefore such organizations should be registered and monitored separately from these other organizations.  The ministry has already set up a directorate of religious affairs in the ministry to coordinate the organizations' activities," he said.

Lokodo noted that the current amended Bill does not provide for the registration of faith based organizations yet the 2010 NGO Policy requires that a separate framework be put in place to cater for them

"We are in the process of developing a legal framework but for the meantime, we request parliament to put a transition clause in the Bill until the framework is put in place," he said.

Lokodo told the legislators that in the legal framework, no individuals will be allowed to set up a church without clearance from the ministry.

"Yes the constitution talks about freedom of worship but of recent we have noted that there are mushrooming churches everywhere and many of them are not registered. Someone just comes up and says the Holy Spirit has told me to set up a church," he said.

"We also noted that some sects go against national laws and ask people not to register, not to eat, not to get medical care and so on. Once the policy is in place, such churches will be deregistered," he said.

He also called for strict laws to monitor funds given to NGOs. He argued that in its current form, the bill does not address the issue of the funds received by NGOs.

"They should declare whatever funds they have to government and what they plan to spend it on. These NGOs receive millions of shillings and if they don't declare it, it's very dangerous to this country. We know that some of them are given money to destabilize the government, promote immoral behaviors such as homosexual and so on," he said.

During the meeting, the MPs were concerned about the behaviors of some religious sects which they said Government needs to monitor and if need be, closed.

“There's a lot of garbage in this area (FBOs) that Government needs to monitor and regulate. Religious sects are everywhere, giving people bad ideas. Such sects should be closed,” Committee chairperson Benny Namugwanya said.