LEADERS WARN ORGANISATIONS AGAINST ILLEGAL OPERATIONS IN ARUA CITY

The city leaders and Heads of organisations in a group photo after the meeting. Photo by Godwin Abedican

By Godwin Abedican

Arua
 
Arua city leaders are raising a red flag over what they term as illegal operations by a number of organizations implementing programs in the city.

According to Part VI- of the NGO act of 2016, the respective administrative units of a city or district are supposed to have non-governmental organization monitoring committees responsible for monitoring and supervising of the organizations, maintain a register of the registered organizations and CBOs, recommend organizations to the Bureau for registration, advise the district and city councils on matters of registration, provide information to the Bureau regarding activities and performance of organizations among others.

For Arua city this is not the case, as organizations have found their way and are currently implementing projects without, the city knowing about their registration and projects statuses.

During a coordination meeting between the city leadership and partners on Tuesday July 30, 2024 at Tropical Suites hotel, Wadri Sam Nyakua, the mayor Arua city said, his office is not aware about most organizations operating in the city.

“As the city mayor, I didn’t know about most of these organizations. This is so strange. I thought we didn’t have the NGOS, CSOs and CBOs. It is good for the organizations to come to our offices and let us know what they are doing and work plans. When we know it is easy for us to follow up. Who monitors your programs? Who monitors your activities? Is it not supposed to be us? But when you just sit there and go out to the community, we don’t know what you are telling the community, thus becomes risky,” Nyakua cautioned the heads of organizations during the meeting.

On his part, Charles Ichogor, the Resident City Commissioner (RCC) Arua, warns organizations against intentionally operating without government knowledge saying the law will catch up with them.

“As you develop your proposals, do not try to antagonize the government. We shall know. The intelligence network of this country is far and wide. I have seen a few faces that I know here. There are only 5 organizations whose profiles I have. I don’t know how all these organizations renew their documents in the NGO board. We need to be very keen there,” he said.

This same situation is also affecting the operations of the NGOs in the refugee settlements as Solomon Osakan, the Refugee Desk Officer in the office of the Prime Minister Arua area office says he keeps receiving a number of calls questioning the permissions given for some organizations to work in refugee response.

However, Feni Twaib, the Executive Director West Nile Civil Society Network (WECISNET), associates this to communication gaps that needs to be fixed.

“Perhaps there could have been information gap. Organizations are supposed to sign MOUs, submit their budgets, work plans and coordinate with the city where a partnership is created. Moving forward after such a meeting, I hope organizations will change and re-direct their operations through the city and I am very sure that they will work with the different departments. And to the organizations, what I can say is that, they need to comply will all the policies and laws whether they are good or bad and they need to meet their legal obligations to work well,” he said in an interview.
 
 

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