Among warns NGOs on donor funds with harsh conditions

The Speaker of Parliament Ms Anita Among has warned Non-Governmental Organisations to desist from taking on donor funds that  come with  stringent conditions.

Ms Among cautioned the organisations yesterday during her meeting with the top leadership of the Uganda National NGO Forum at Parliament.  She said the government can fund activities of the various NGOs.

“I know very well that when you get this foreign funding, it has a lot of attachments. When we work together and collaborate together, as a country we shall even budget for your activities and you stop those things of begging with conditions outside,” Ms Among said.

She added: “We have the money that we can fund people like you who are helping this country.”

The NGOs were also asked to focus on serving  public interests instead of engaging in partisan politics.

“We know [that] you contribute a lot and we need to co-exist especially when the non-state actors are non-partisan, we believe that they will give us the best information that we need,” Ms Among said.

Ms Among also rallied the NGOs on  monitoring the  implementation of government projects.

“In appropriation, it is you the NGO that is able to find out what is out there; in terms of accountability and transparency. We give out money and we don’t know whether the money reaches to the right people,” Ms Among said.

She added: “We have given out a lot of money on PDM[Parish Developmnet Model] but we don’t know whether it has reached... we can only get information from you to be able to inform our decision in the next appropriation. We need to know what was appropriated in the previous budget, where it has done its work and impact.”

The Uganda National NGO Forum Executive Director,  Mr Moses Isooba pledged to heed  the Speaker’s  advise.

“We take seriously the counsel you have given us to remain non-partisan. We shall always try to do that as much as we can,” Mr Isooba pledged.

Mr Isooba’s team also promised to canverse the entire country to, among other things, establish the ails of communities which would later be furnished to the legislative arm and other government entities to feed into a process purposed to improve on transparency in the country.  

“As Uganda NGO forum, much of our work is on creating citizen engagement so people are able to have a meaningful engagement with the government.”

 He added: “Our little engagement with people out there indicates that there is a hunger in terms of governance and electoral processes.’’

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