Govt De-registers 291 Non-governmental Organisations

The majority of the 291 private voluntary organisations recently deregistered by the Registrar of Private Voluntary Organisations had not submitted their annual returns as required by the Private Voluntary Organisations Act, a cabinet minister has said.

Speaking to The Herald, Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Paul Mavima said the PVOs were deregistered for different reasons but mainly because of their failure to submit audited financial statements. He said:

The reasons for deregistration vary from one organisation to another, but basically, most of them failed to submit the needed annual returns as mandated by the Act.

Typically, you will find that on rare occasions there are issues of national security, but those are very rare.

The main problem was people biting off more than they could chew.

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People just register but they do not deliver on their mandate, and also some cannot keep up with the requirements for reporting, and therefore they end up being deregistered.

For example, they say they want to provide services to vulnerable people, maybe children, maybe elderly people.

They bring brilliant ideas, but on implementation, they find that they cannot get the resources that are needed and they cannot keep up with the requirements.

That is to say bring the report on an annual basis, and bring audited financial statements.

As a result, they fail to comply, let alone deliver on the mandate so they end up being deregistered because they have not fulfilled the requirements for registration.

The registrar of the PVOs had earlier announced the cancellation of the certificates of the delisted organisations for not complying with what the Act required. It said in a statement:

The Registrar of Private Voluntary Organisations in conjunction with the Private Voluntary Organisation Board has noted with concern that a number of registered private voluntary organisations are not complying with the prescribed expectations of their operations, as outlined in terms of the Private Voluntary Organisation Act (Chapter 17:05).

Accordingly, the Registrar of Private Voluntary Organisations and the Private Voluntary Organisation Board have therefore deregistered 291 organisations that were found to be non-compliant with the provisions of the Private Voluntary Organisation Act.