The Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare said Private Voluntary Organisations (PVOs) are not obligated to pay for Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs) with any local authority. This was said by the Director for Social Welfare, Retired Major Thuso Maphala, at a meeting held with National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations to discuss the state of NGOs in Zimbabwe.
NANGO Director, Leonard Mandishara, expressed how the work of NGOs in Zimbabwe is being curbed by shrinking operating space, constrictive regulations, restrictive legislation and delays in PVO registration processes.
Mandishara also informed Rtd. Major Maphala that members have different annual financial cycles and internal processes that may make it impossible to submit 2017 audited statements and annual reports by the deadline, 31 March 2018. He further requested the ministry to waiver this for those members who may not be able to meet the cut-off date.
He further indicated that there is a growing number of NGOs that want to register as PVOs but past experiences show that the process is lengthy and leads many to register as trusts. Lastly Mandishara encouraged the ministry to engage NGOs.
Rtd. Major Maphala appreciated the initiative by NANGO to engage and seek to find common ground and agreed that there is need to strengthen relations between NGOs and the parent ministry. On constrictive regulations of NGOs around the country, Rtd. Major Maphala stressed that PVOs are not obligated to sign or pay for MOUs with any local authority. He added that the ministry was in the process of investigating cases that were reported at the December 2017 PVO board meeting.
Rtd. Major Maphala indicated that as the parent ministry of PVOs, they would like to continue engaging and gathering evidence on where and when PVOs were barred from executing their mandates. With regards to delays in PVO registration, the minister asserted that the PVO board will be sitting four times a year to review the applications that would have been received. He added that, social welfare officers right up to district level have been trained on how to assist stakeholders and ensuring that applications sent to the PVO board have all the required information. This is anticipated to ease the backlog and expedite the registration of PVOs.
To the relief of many, Rtd. Major Maphala appreciated the initiative by NANGO to engage before the lapse of the deadline and agreed to waiver the regulation on condition that NANGO submits a list of its members and the different challenges they may be facing in terms of meeting the 31 March deadline.
