Transparency International Zambia has warned the Patriotic Front government to remember that the NGO Act of 2009 they are insisting on was partly responsible for the MMD government’s loss of power.
Addressing a media briefing, TIZ Chairperson Lee Habasonda said the PF government should go ahead and deregister the NGOs that have refused to succumb to the contentious legislation and face the consequences.
The PF government has written letters of deregistration to over 200 NGOs giving them a 30 day ultimatum within which to register under the NGO Act or face deregistration.
“The minister said register first, then we talk which is just bad faith, we want to talk freely and openly no conditionalities, express our concerns we,” Habasonda said.
“We have Zambia is one; absolutely there is nothing we are hiding. I think I have been around NGOs for a long time, I think I fit in the bill of being called veteran and she (Emelyn Kabanshi) has just gone there to the ministry very recently and I am afraid we want genuine dialogue.”
Habasonda said the new law was vague about a lot of remedies for those found wanting and did not lay down any clear recourse.
“And the Act falls short of giving any guidance in what happens in case the minister rejects the names of all elected NGO officials. In such matters whether there is a reconvening of congress and how the board will be constituted in that scenario,” he said.
Habasonda said TIZ will not register under the new law just as they had resisted under the MMD government.
“We will not register under new law because a draconian law is no law at all,” he said.
The NGO Act of 2009 has powers to restrict the area of operation for the NGO, also proposes a 15 member board that has nine officials as representatives of government and also will require NGOs to re-register after every five years.
According to leaked documents published on the website Zambian Watchdog, the Ministry of Community Development has taken the extraordinarily controversial step of writing letters to every diplomatic mission in the country, warning them against providing any funding to civil society organisations and NGOs that are not registered under the Act.
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