By George Bulombola

Mzuzu, April 9, Mana: Chief Executive officer for Non-Governmental Regulatory Authority (NGORA), Edward Chileka Banda, Friday commended Non –Governmental organizations (NGOs) for improved compliance to operating regulations and NGO Act.

Banda was speaking in Mzuzu during a presentation of an update on the operations of NGORA to NGOs drawn from the north.

“We have in this just ended quarter, 350 NGOs that have licenses basing their last year’s reports.  This is contrary to previous years where compliance was low and we therefore commend them for this.

We are also currently processing a number of applications and licenses are issued based on reports that NGOs are required to submit to NGORA as we continue promoting a compliance culture as a bedrock to success,” said Banda.

He said that the reports include issues such as sources of fund and the amount, activities being implemented and where.

“The whole purpose of this, is to ensure that NGOs’ operations benefit communities because without that, it becomes difficult to track, monitor and understand the impact of their operations in the communities,” he said.

Banda also said that there were cases in the past where some NGOs had taken advantage of communities and abused resources provided by donors, hence some donors complained of their funds being embezzled.

On update on regulations, he said that NGORA has come up with operating regulation for international NGOs.

“In this particular regulation which has been gazetted already, there is a requirement for international NGOs to be spending at least 30 percent of their funding through local organizations to ensure enhanced capacity of local NGOs and sustainability of interventions through various sectors in their projects’ catchment areas,” he added.

Executive Director for Youth Watch Society, Muteyu Banda described the meeting important as besides update from NGORA it also discussed issues of compliance to enhance sanity, transparency and accountability in the operations of NGOs.

Banda wondered why some NGOs which are fond of holding press briefings and organizing demonstrations are either registered with NGORA or not as most of them don’t avail themselves during such meetings.

 “It is of paramount importance that NGOs operate within the rule of law and I can say that am satisfied with the laws and regulations that they do not shrink civil space in terms of advocacy but will continue checking on each other to ensure sanity and that we always work within the laws,” said Banda.