The Government has directed more than 10,000 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to stop operations.
This follows a verification and validation exercise by the Internal Affairs Ministry and National Bureau for NGOs. The one month exercise happened between August and September 2019.
Mario Kania, the Minister of State for Internal Affairs while addressing a press conference on Wednesday at the Government Media Centre, said that the NGOs were only required to fill in a form for verification showing their activities, staffing structure, geographical area of operation, among others.
According to Mario Obiga Kania the Minister of State for Internal Affairs of the 14,207 registered NGOs, only 2,118 were validated. 1, 635 being local NGOs, 254 foreign, 205 international, 7 regional and 17 continentals.
Kania warned companies and individuals including hotels, industries, and offices to refrain from dealing with any NGO that doesn’t appear on the list.
He also called on district and sub-county NGO monitoring committees, Uganda Police, Financial Intelligence Authority, Banks, and hotels should ensure that they do not transact with the NGOs.
The Interim Executive Director National Bureau of NGOs, Stephen Okello says that the aim of the validation process was to remove dormant and non-existent NGOs.
He, however, says they will be receiving complaints and concerns in regards to registration on a weekly basis and those aggrieved or in need of validation should report with their documents to the National Bureau of NGOs.
The process was meant at establishing a more dependable data bank on all NGOs for transparency between the NGO Bureau and districts to ascertain status of NGOs and have a validated register of all NGOs.
