DODOMA: PARLIAMENT has passed a resolution pushing for the government to axe all Non-Governmental Organisations, (NGOs) that are engaging in activities that contravenes the country’s morals and ethics.
Also, the House wants the NGOs that are dealing with dubious deals involving money laundering to be completely removed from the Registrar of NGOs records.
The parliamentary standing committee on Community Development further endorsed a resolution seeking to have all NGOs engaging into the country]s politics to also be completely axed.
Presenting the committees 2024 report in the august House on Tuesday, the Chairperson of the committee, Fatma Tawfiq told the House that lack of enough funds had resulted into failure by the government to make follow ups on about 9,773 NGOs operating in the country.
This, according to the committee chair has provided a loopehole for some NGOs to engage into activities that are typically contrary with their registration’s objectives.
Therefore, the committee suggested, the government should allocate enough funds to the office of the registrar of NGOs so that the latter can make close monitoring to ensure that whatever is done is of interest to the nation.
“The government should equally contemplate on the need to employ deputy registrars who will be posted to the Ministry of Community Development, Gender and Special Groups, so that they can keep eyes on all registered NGOs,” she noted.
The committee was also concerned with Non-Perfornimg loans (NPF) in the government’s package to empower women, youth and persons with disabilities.
“Failure to service these loans affects disbursement of new loans to persons applying to have this gentlemen golden opportunity offered by the sixth phase government,’’ noted Ms Tawfiq.
Therefore, the House passed a resolution that the government should put up a robust strategy in place that will ensure that loans repayment remains active.
“The government should also look at other measures to increase new revenue sources so as to increase funding in the Women Development Fund (WDF so that more women can benefit,” the committee chair insisted.
Ms Tawfiq informed the House that WDF had a capital of 1.2tril/- and that money that was currently into the account of the fund amounted to 322.5m/-.
According to the committee chairperson, Non Performing Loans from different Local Government Authorities in the fund amounted to 475.5/-m and that 461.8/-m is the money that the central government provided to women entrepreneurs in loans, including individual women.
The parliamentary committee also expressed concern on the dwindling budget for the young citizens via the Skills Development Levy (SDL) Programme.
The committee said that because of budget deficit, the number of youth benefiting from the intitiative had dropped from 42,000 to about12,000 youth.