Gov’t announce Nationwide Verification and Validation of all NGO’s

“Those that have never been registered should do so before the 8^th September…. or they will not be allowed to operate.”– Gen. Jeje Odongo

Government of Uganda through the Ministry of Internal Affairs has announced a one month exercise to verify validity of registration of NGO’s operating in the country.

During the validation of registration exercise, verification of eligible NGO will be conducted and NGOs will be issued new permits. According to the minister, the exercise starts tomorrow 8^th August 2019, and will run up to 7^th September 2019.

In a statement released today by the Internal Affairs minister Gen. Jeje Odong , the motive is to build a reliable and credible data bank of information on all NGOs operating in Uganda for evidence based decision making

 Gen. Odongo said some NGO’s have been operating illegally since there has not been any verification for the last 30 years.

The exercise will be conducted by National Bureau for NGOs (NGO Bureau) which is a semi – autonomous entity under Ministry of Internal Affairs, established under the NGO Act to replace National NGO Board.

The Minister says that in order to effectively regulate and implement the NGO regulatory framework, there was need for verification and validation of the information on NGOs.

“All NGOs with either expiry permits or have never registered with NGO Bureau in accordance with section 31(1) of NGO Act 2016 are not supposed to operate in any part of the country” said Gen. Jeje Odongo.

During the exercise, NGO’s whose permits expired are expected to apply for renewaland validation while those that have never been registered should do so before the 8^th September deadline expires.

The minister also noted that on 8th April this year, a communication was sent to all districts requesting for a copy of Community Based Organizations (CBOs) register and NGO inventory but out of 128 districts, 71 submitted their data and 57 didn’t comply. He says the ministry is making a follow up on non-compliant districts and also engaging Ministry of local government on the matter.

Available statistics show that out of 3,810 NGOs operating with valid permits, 1264 are in Central region, 294 in Eastern region, 216 in Northern, and 212 in the Western region. These NGOs are indigenous, Foreign, International, Regional and Continental.

NGO’s  operate in the sectors of social Development, Health, Education, Justice law and order Sector, water and environment, Agriculture, public administration, Tourism, science technology and Innovation, public sector management, water and transport among others.