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Kenyan government de-registered more than 200 NGOs

Kenyan government de-registered more than 200 NGOs
Kenyan government de-registered more than 200 NGOs

(Nairobi): Many non-governmental organizations specialising in managing HIV/AIDS and other health issues struggle โ€“ and often fail – to account for allocated funding.

Thatโ€™s the argument of the Kenyan chapter of Transparency International (TI) and the Co-ordination Board of Kenya, which say governmental many NGOs squander valuable funding on attending conferences and paying out allowances for staff to attend these meetings.

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โ€œThe common man on the ground does not get access to any help,โ€ says Charles Mugo, a program officer with TI Kenya.

โ€œHe still lives on deep poverty. When the organizations for instance write good smart proposals to donors, even the issue of per diems is not included in the write ups.

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โ€œThey also do not state the exact amount of conferences that they will plan. The most importantโ€™ issue is how much money goes to the ground, is what mostly part of their write ups is all about.โ€
Mr Mugo says he has encountered instances of NGOs changing the focus of their work to attract new sources of funding at the potential expense of responding to local needs.

โ€œFor example, many switch from heath management to climate change when donors pledge for more cash on climate change initiatives,โ€ he says.

โ€œThey end up abandoning incomplete projects they had proposed to their [original] donors,โ€ he adds.

Since February this year, the Kenyan government has de-registered more than 200 NGOs, many of which had specialised in health issues, particularly HIV-AIDS, after they failed to account for missing funds.

โ€œ[These] organizations have not met financial obligations and that is worrying,โ€ says Charles Mugo, a registrar at the NGO Co-ordination Board, a government agency that licenses local and international NGOs operating in Kenya.

โ€œThey have not submitted their annual reports. They have not accounted for any of the funds. [However] we have reinstated a few that submitted [these records] late.โ€

Mrย Mugo says there is evidence to suggest that some NGOs spend donor funds on luxury goods such as cars and organisation holidays.

Mr Mugo says: โ€œIt is very disturbing, despite extending our time to give them the chance to submit their annual reports, they ignore our hospitality.

โ€œApart from not accounting for the money, the organizations have also breached the Non-Governmental Coordination Act of 1990. This Act defines the conduct of NGOs.โ€

The Board has advised banks, government departments and members of the public that if they deal with deregistered organisations, they do so at their own risk.

A source at the Board has told me, on condition of anonymity, that: โ€œthe 200 NGOs that have had their certificates confiscated by the Board mismanaged funds. The funds are actually slightly more than a billion dollarsโ€. The source adds that new certificates cannot be obtained as the organisations have been publicly gazetted.

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Kenyan government de-registered more than 200 NGOs

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