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Parliament endorses new NGO fees

 

Three parliamentary committees have endorsed the hiking of fees non-governmental organisations (NGO)s pay to government, which civil society previously chided as repressive.

The revised fee structure will require NGOs to pay fees based on the funding they receive and not a fixed amount as is currently the case.

The move, which forced Council for Non-Government Organisations in Malawi (Congoma) to appeal to Parliament to intervene, will affect both local and international NGOs in the country.

Chimwendo: We support it

Parliamentary Committee on Social Welfare chairperson Richard Chimwendo confirmed in an interview that his committee, alongside Legal Affairs, and Budget and Finance, have agreed to adjust the fee structure.

“At the end of the day, we don’t feel that it is a bad adjustment. We really want to see the NGO Board do their work of monitoring NGOs effectively,” he said.

Chimwendo said the old fees did not help government collect returns.

NGO Board chairperson Abigail Dzimadzi could not be reached for comment as her phone went unanswered.

The new fee structure, which was approved in January by the NGO Board, received mixed reactions from the NGOs with some supporting it while others did not.

Initially, all local NGOs were paying an annual subscription fee of K50 000 while international NGOs paid K250 000.

But in the proposed structure, the NGOs have been classified according to their annual returns.

If an NGO has an annual income of K100 million, the new fee structure requires them to pay K100 000 and those who have an an income of between K100 million and K500 million will pay K250 000 and the rest will big NGOs which pay about K2 million.

According to NGO Board, the volume of money that goes off budget keeps growing every year and it does not go through Parliament.

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