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Govt must eat humble pie on NGOs

Opinion & Analysis
The spirited attack in the public Press on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for their lack of presence in the humanitarian crisis at Chingwizi

The spirited attack in the public Press on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for their lack of presence in the humanitarian crisis at Chingwizi transit camp is deceptive.

NewsDay Editorial

Two things should be clear from the outset. The first is that government has a responsibility to its people in times of national disasters, failure of which it may openly and honestly seek assistance from well-wishers, such as NGOs, and sympathetic governments.

The second is that as recently as last year, government banned NGOs from operating in some provinces, particularly Masvingo. It has not, to the best of our knowledge, lifted that ban.

To now turn around and shed crocodile tears about the same NGOs not coming to its assistance is to divert attention from its own failure.

Government’s onslaught on NGOs is well documented. As far back as 2008, Parliament voted to pass a law banning foreign-funded rights groups in the country. Zanu PF used its majority in Parliament to vote to approve the law.

This was after government accused Britain and other Western powers of using the NGOs in a campaign against it. It said the Bill would ban foreign funding of rights activists and require organisations operating in the country to register with a State-appointed body.

The following year, President Robert Mugabe reiterated his government’s suspicion of NGOs when he addressed the Global 2009 Dialogue conference at the Munyonyo resort on the shores of Lake Victoria.

He said: “We have now a phenomenon of NGOs . . . I don’t know whether this creature is for the better or for the worse, but in our country we have seen a situation where they have exceeded their terms of reference, and perhaps we might have to reconsider the advisability of having NGOs.”

In February 2012, Masvingo governor Titus Maluleke deregistered 29 NGOs in the province accusing them of failing to submit certain paperwork to the local provincial administrator.

Zanu PF stood firmly behind Maluleke; its spokesperson Rugare Gumbo insisted in an interview the decision by governor Maluleke had the blessings of his party. He said: “The principle of the party is there on the table. So he [Maluleke] is not acting on his own. He is following the party resolutions.”

In May last year, Cain Mathema, the former Governor and Resident Minister for Bulawayo, accused most of the NGOs of being funded by United States intelligence organisations and the British.

“They are part of the regime change agenda and, in fact, I have the figures that prove their source of funding,” he claimed.

In the face of its bungling of, first, the Tokwe-Mukorsi evacuation and, second, the resettlement of the displaced families, government is now searching for scapegoats and has found them in the form of NGOs.

The right thing to do is for government to eat humble pie and as openly and as honestly as possible appeal for assistance from the NGOs instead of sickeningly trying to blackmail them by accusing them of a crime they have not committed.