The government of Sierra Leone through the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development has denied issuing registration certificates to twenty five non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in 2023 due to several reasons.
“Last year we did not issue registration certificate to twenty five NGOs because of these anomalies. We also suspended the operations of ten (10) NGOs. We always inform the law enforcement agency to enforce the laws,” the Director of NGOs Unit, Eric Massally said on local radio recently.
He accused some of these NGOs of failing to submit their audited report, noting that they are receiving resources for and on behalf of the people of Sierra Leone.
He pointed out that it is the responsibility of government to make sure that all NGOs operating in the country uses the resources judiciously.
Massally pointed out that government has also realized that in some cases only the husband and wife runs the NGO, while some people uses stores as offices which, he said, they are determined to stop once and for all.
Massally said in collaboration with line ministries, they have started the verification exercise of both national and international NGOs operating in the country.
The one month exercise, he said, is to ensure that these NGOs meet the threshold set by government to operate in the country.
“Any NGO that does not meet the threshold will not be issued license to operate in the country. Each registered NGO must have a well-structured and established office space, logo, permanent staff with chairs, tables and computers,” he said, adding that any NGO that does not fulfill the set criteria will not be allowed to operate in the country.
He said they would also verify the list of all staff submitted during the verification exercise in addition to doing head counts to ascertain that all the information provided to government is in place.