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Inside new govt, DGF agreement

Mining in Karamoja Sub-region is one of the activities that was recently affected by the suspension of DGF funds. PHOTO/ COURTESY

What you need to know:

  •  In August, the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA), an agency that tracks suspicious money movements in the country, directed banks to disclose financial details of 13 NGOs in the country.

As government places civil society organisations (CSOs) into a chokehold, it’s not clear yet when government will lift the suspension on the Democratic Governance Facility (DGF), a multi-donor vote established by eight the European Union   (EU) countries.   

Highly placed sources revealed that some EU envoys were getting frustrated with government’s delay to lift the suspension after the parties hammered out new rules of engagement in an addendum that government is yet to sign.  But even if the DGF was given a new lease of life, the facility will operate under strict conditions.   

According to the addendum to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), a copy Daily Monitor has seen, the new agreement gives government the latitude to place many of DGF’s activities under the microscope. 

The addendum was authored on June 2, by the outgoing Foreign Affairs Permanent Secretary, Ambassador Patrick Mugoya and copied to the Danish envoy, Nicolaj Abraham H. Petersen.  

In February, the President ordered the Finance minister, Mr Matia Kasaija, to immediately suspend the facility, which he accused of bankrolling non governmental organisation activities to undermine his government. 

Mr Museveni argued that DGF funds were being “used to finance activities and organisations designed to subvert (the) government under the guise of improving governance.” 

In his January 2, letter to minister Kasaija, the President accused the then Finance permanent secretary, who also doubled as the Secretary to the Treasury, Mr Keith Muhakanizi, of having “irregularly and unilaterally” licensed DGF to operate with very limited involvement of Ugandans. 

“How and why did the minister of Finance unilaterally make such a major decision with far-reaching consequences, let alone one whose effect is to surrender the sovereignty of the people of Uganda to foreigners? Was this a reason of subversion, corruption, or criminal negligence, or all of these? Why wasn’t Cabinet and I consulted?” Mr Museveni wrote. 

PS Muhakanizi has since been moved from the coveted role of Secretary to the Treasury and appointed the Permanent Secretary at the Office of the Prime Minister. He was replaced by Ramathan Ggoobi, an economist. 

After a February 18 meeting that held with EU diplomats at State House Entebbe, President Museveni formed an ad hoc committee headed by former Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda to spearhead negotiations with the donors and ensure a new governance structure with adequate local representation is put in place.  

But DGF lists equitable growth, poverty eradication, rule of law and long-term stability as the plank of its work in the country.    

With a financial war chest worth Shs500b, DGF provided funds to government ministries and departments. It was also the largest financier of local NGOs, which employed hundreds of Ugandans.  

“The parties have agreed to amend the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and any other agreements that might concern the Democratic Governance Facility (DGF) with a view to streamlining its funding modalities and rationalising the grant’s governance structure to provide for the appropriate participation of the government of Uganda,” reads the letter authored by Mugoya.  

According to the document, the deal was struck through ‘mutual understanding’ and gives government a role on the steering committee by three members.  

The addendum recommends that each country represented on the board or the steering committee shall have one vote.  

In case of a contentious matter by one or more board members and provided the issue has remained unresolved through the normal decision-making mechanism established by the DGF board for more than one calendar month, any board member may request that such an issue be elevated to the ministerial level with a view to having it resolved amicably.

The document also specifies that in case the facility receives funding from any ‘third party donor or partner towards any of the programmes covered by the MoU, government will have to be notified of the contribution including the amount donated.’  

Whereas this deal was supposedly ‘struck through mutual understanding’ civil society actors warn that the shackles placed on DGF are part of the gradual plan to torpedo civic space in the country.
“You can’t be under the illusion that reopening it is something civil. I believe that the regime would want to keep DGF closed as long as it is politically tenable, if donors are thinking that DGF will be resumed because of diplomatic niceties that would be a big joke. DGF was closed because it invests in civil society organisations that raise civic consciousness of the population,” Mr Godber Tumushabe, the associate director of Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies (GLISS), said.

GLISS was this Friday indefinitely suspended by the NGO Bureau ostensibly for flouting the law. In December 2020, the government commenced a purge against NGOs. 

Amongst those targeted were senior officials who represented western capitals. They were accused of pursuing a neo-colonial agenda by sponsoring regime opponents.

“What we have heard since 2006 is a systematic regime initiative to demobilise civil society, the closing of DGF is one of the biggest tools that they had and they have done very well. They kill labour unions, civil society, they co-opt them, and those that cannot be co-opted are destroyed. I have also projected that it is going to get worse before it gets better, if anybody thinks that we are going to have a let up, they have to prepare for a worst case scenario,” Tumushabe argued.  

During the same period, Mr Simon Osborn, the EU advisor on elections in Uganda, was carted off to the airport and deported. 

Mr Osborn previously worked as the Country Director of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a US democracy assistance organisation in Uganda whose board chairperson is the former US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright. 

Another official at the DGF, a multi-donor facility established by eight EU countries was also blocked from returning to Uganda after he had travelled to Netherlands for holiday. 

Marco Deswart, DGF’s head of election programmes was meant to return to work in July but was told by the immigration department in his country that he couldn’t travel. 

Among reasons which led to his rejection, according to sources, is that he had participated in election-related work outside Uganda and specifically in Rwanda.

The International Republican Institute (IRI), another western donor organisation, received a warning about thrir activities. 

The IRI is an American nonprofit, nonpartisan organisation committed to advancing freedom and democracy worldwide by helping political parties to become more issue-based. 
Amongst the requirements IRI has been asked to submit, are details of its work in the country.  

For long Uganda has been touted as one of the West’s major allies in the volatile Great Lakes and Horn of Africa where it latched on the war against terrorism to fight al-Shabab insurgents. Perhaps the war on terror has run its course and as Uganda seeks new alliances in China, this has prompted these former allies to begin treating each other with suspicion. 

In August, the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA), an agency that tracks suspicious money movements in the country, directed banks to disclose financial details of 13 NGOs in the country. 

These included ActionAid International Uganda and the Democratic Governance Facility, an entity set up by a consortium of eight donors: Austria, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the UK and the EU.

ActionAid had its accounts frozen in 2017 during an investigation into alleged money laundering. The accounts were later activated. 

On Friday, government halted the activities of 54 non-governmental organisations.  Amongthe organisations indefinitely suspended was Chapter Four run by human rights lawyer, Nicholas Opiyo. Mr Opiyo was in December 2020 arrested and charged with money laundering.

He was briefly detained at Kitalya Prison in Wakiso but later released on bail on December 30, 2020. 
“There are scientific studies done to measure civic freedoms around the world using indexes. For the last 10 years in the London Freedom House index, Uganda has been ranking as un-free, partially free or repressed,” Opiyo recently revealed.

The National Bureau for NGOs, which is a branch of the Internal Affairs ministry, in a statement  said the shutdown was ordered “with immediate effect”. But Mr Tumushabe said the NGO bureau is a tool through which the regime executes ‘its political and administrative harassment against civil servant leaders and organisations that do not agree with them.’ 

Ms Sarah Bireete, the executive director Centre for Constitutional Governance, which advocates for good governance, told Daily Monitor last week that the writing is on the wall in regard to civic space in the country. 

Ms Bireete said: “One of the indicators of civil liberty is enjoyment of freedom of expression, association, and assembly provided for under Article 29 of the Constitution which is the most abused.”
She added: “Since 2017 during the campaign to remove the age limit provision, we have seen a siege on NGOs accused of money laundering and their accounts closed but no single NGO leader has been tried in court for the same except Nicholas Opiyo but also in whose case the prosecution evidence is wanting.” 

The NGO bureau says its decision is anchored on the NGOs’ failure to comply with the law, which included operating with expired permits, failure to file accounts and to register with the authorities. 

But Mr Tumushabe said: “Lets give them the benefit of doubt that GLISS has flouted certain laws or has not met certain compliance requirements. The mandated agency in our case Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) would write to us and they have done it before, the NSSF has written to us and said we want to do audit.” 
He added that the most intense attack on civil liberties started in 2000. 

“So most of the laws that have been enacted since 2000, were designed to restrict civic space, to restrict civic organising, to restrict freedom of association,” he said.

Mr Tumushabe argues that a raft of laws that have been enacted including the Anti-Terrorism Act, the Public Order Management Act, the Anti-Money Laundering Act, the Interception of Communications Act and others have specific sections that are draconian in nature and are meant to target freedoms and civil liberties. 

“Some have been challenged, like the Public Order Management Act; the case took six years at the Constitutional Court for a section of it to be struck out but the state has since appealed and will likely take another five years. So, we might take 12 years in court. But even then, we see an increased impunity on the side of duty bearers so these things are going to become more before we see daybreak,”  Ms  Bireete argues.  

“You have to realise there is a gradual construction of laws and systems that are providing legitimacy for otherwise illegitimate acts So, a law on assembly—POMA—was passed but merely was a re-enactment of the section of Police Act on powers of police to control public assemblies which court invalidated,” he said. 

“But when you challenge a law you can spend 10 years in court…the laws are passed along party interests, and for individual interest…allowing the executive to ride roughshod,” Mr Opiyo argues.  

Background

 In August, the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA), an agency that tracks suspicious money movements in the country, directed banks to disclose financial details of 13 NGOs in the country.

These included ActionAid International Uganda and the Democratic Governance Facility.