Malawi’s NGOs fight for survival from govt stiffle

Malawi’s Non Government Organisation leaders fear government is strategising to  ‘kill’ civil society.

MacBain Mkandawire: NGO Board should be independent
MacBain Mkandawire: NGO Board should be independent

Council for Non Government Organisations  (Congoma ) Board chair Macbain Mkandawire has claimed that the NGO Borad report  that about 90 percent of donor money has not be accounted by the CSOs in the country is a  gimmick that is meant to administratively create criminals out of NGOs so as to provide excuses for intrusion, clamp down and closures of NGOs

NGO Board Chief Executive Officer Voice Mhone gave a length presentation highlighting that out of K146 billion donor money only close to K15 billion has been accounted for leaving out K131 billion untraced.

Mhone said what NGOs are doing is contravening Section 22 of the NGO Act which calls for NGOs to submit audited accounts with the Board.

He said NGOs plays vital role in the social economic development of the country, which cannot be over emphasised.

Currently, the Ministry of Gender, Children, disability and social welfare (MoGDCSW) is mandated to define policies, strategies and Programs which enhance the  regulaton and coordinaton of NGO operatons in Malawi.

The Ministry through the NGO Board remains key in consolidating all NGO contributons towards the national and global development agenda.

But Congoma Board chair,  Mkandawire,  said its not true that NGOs are not accountable with donor money.

“What is happening is non compliance with the law the non compliance part is coming because there are a lot of problems with NGO act and that there is no policy and guidelines to enforce the act,” said Mkandawire.

Mkandawire said NGO Board is trying everything to stifle the voice of critical NGOs so that they are not able to check government.

Just recently the Ministry of Gender Children Disability and Social welfare commissioned a mapping
exercise of all NGOs operatng at the local council level.

The exercise was undertaken by NGO Board of Malawi  with fnancial support from UNDP and UN Women.

NGO Board of Malawi has fnally established a local council based directorate of; NGOs per council, annual funding, source of funding, and area of focus. The data is a compositon collected using the NGO mapping exercise.

On resources channeled to NGOs, only 32% of the NGOs revealed their local council based budgets which amount to an annual sum of MWK 47 Billion.

The mapping exercise revealed that each council has an annual budget of  MWK 1.4 Billion which is higher than the Ministry of Gender  Children Disability and Social Welfare`s annual budget of MWK 1.3 Billion.

On women agenda, only 31% of the NGO respondents are focusing on gender equality.

It means within the NGO sector, efforts of mainstreaming gender are falling short of achieving the 50:50 target.

Limitaton to the database is that some but few NGOs could not be contacted; many did not provide information on time; and they have different annual financial cycle.

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santana
santana
7 years ago

Has Kamlepo seen this report? I hope to hear more from him on this report.

be humane
be humane
7 years ago

What is Macbain denying here? There are so many unscrupulous NGOs who don’t even have offices. Its hard even to trace them yet they get Millions of Kwachas. For example do you people know where CEDEP is located? How many officers does it have? What other programmes does it implement apart from speaking in the media? Have you ever wondered why everything that CEDEP does is done jointly with CHRR? Policies or not policies Macbain, a Clean accounting and audit report is an asset for any organization. You cannot say i don’t know how I used that K1000 because there… Read more »

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