The Director of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development, Eric Masalay, has disclosed to africa24 in his Tower Hill office in Freetown, that the Ministry will discontinue the issuance of temporary approval for Service Level Agreements (SLAs) of non-funded projects. He stressed that any NGO or INGO operating without a signed SLA and proper registration with the government will face the full force of the law.

He said if there is any NGO that has not started operations before a “Gazette which they will soon issue out, there is going to be a three week grace period for them before an extensive verification exercise with the law enforcement agencies,” Mr. Masalay emphasized.

He encouraged all with temporally approved projects which are not fortunate to attract funding from donors, to go to their line ministries and sign the SLA, adding that their main focus is to identify organizations that will complement the effort of government, as well as sanitizing the NGO sector thereby protecting donor funds given to the people of Sierra Leone.

Based on their monitoring, Masalay said, they have discovered that many NGOs are yet to sign the Service Level Agreement with their line ministries, but most times these NGOs implement projects that do not meet the expected outcome of the people and donor partners.

The Director emphasized: “We are going to discontinue the issuance of temporal approval for Service Level Agreement of non-funded projects. Therefore, we want to encourage all to attract funding for their projects and sign the SLA through their line ministries.”

He concluded by saying the gazette which they will soon publish will show organizations who have registered and those that are yet to do so well as projects that have received funding, adding that only funded projects that are aligned with the “Medium Term National Development Plan” will be processed by line Ministries and inputted to the NGO Partnership Mapping Tool.