Uganda: Reactions Trail Suspension of 54 NGOs

By Development Diaries
August 25, 2021

Some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Uganda have accused the country’s government of harassing them for political purposes.

Uganda’s National Bureau for NGOs recently suspended 54 aid groups, accusing them of failing to comply with regulations.

Development Diaries understands that the NGOs were barred from operating in the country based on several allegations that include failure to file tax returns, inadequate accreditation and registration.

‘The first one is Chapter Four Uganda that has not filed returns from 2016–2020′, the Executive Director of the National Bureau of NGOs, Steven Okello, said.

‘The second is Citizens Coalition for Democracy in Uganda, commonly known as “CCEDDU”.

‘Now CCEDDU does not only have issues with the filing of returns, they have issues like they proceeded to observe elections without accreditation from the Electoral Commission’.

The NGO regulatory body also suspended Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies for ‘operating without registration and not disclosing its activities’.

Okello said all district NGO monitoring committees had been put on alert to ensure all the suspended NGOs cease operations.

In her reaction to the suspension, the Chairperson of CCEDU, Miria Matembe, said CCEDU only failed to file tax returns for one year because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

‘And we went into lockdown. And the challenges have been quite a lot. And if within that year, you are a bit late in submitting returns, I do not think that that should earn us a suspension’, Matembe said.

‘So, me, I am thinking, [perhaps], I do not know whether there could be another reason behind as you may imagine’.

For his part, Assistant Director of Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies, Godber Tumushabe, said his organisation was only required to register and comply with requirements under the Companies Act and not the NGO Bureau.

‘The NGO Bureau has been consistently used as a tool to politically and administratively harass Ugandan NGOs and Ugandan NGO leaders and actually even pro-democracy activists’, Tumushabe agued.

In December 2020, the Executive Director of Chapter Four, Nicholas Opio, was arrested on allegations of money laundering.

In February this year, several NGOs were forced to either close or scale down activities after the government ordered the suspension of international NGO, Democratic Governance Facility (DGF).

Eight development partners formed the DGF in 2011 to provide well-coordinated support to state and non-state entities in order to strengthen pro-democracy campaigns and protect human rights in the East African country.

In the first week of June 2021, authorities in Uganda suspended the operations of six NGOs over alleged fraud.

In a recent tweet, Tumushabe said the civic space in Uganda was shrinking rapidly.

‘I want to tell NGOs and CSOs, it can only get worse before it gets better. So tighten your belts and be ready for what is yet to come because [it is] going to be tough’, the tweet read.

Source: VOA