Government has cracked a whip on all rogue civic organisations in the country and threatened to de-register them following reports that some of them received aid in foreign currency and diverted the funds starving the intended beneficiaries.
Department of social welfare top official Clemence Masango said they were aware of more than 560 NGOs that were registered with their department and receiving aid in United States dollars but are not directing the funds to the beneficiaries.
“We have NGOs that are registered under the PVO Act but are not working on the ground as they claim to do when they registered with us. We know them and we are coming for them we have deregistered two of them already and this is only the beginning”
Speaking at the Adolescents and Young women in commercial sex work workshop organized by the National AIDS Council last week, Machingauta said it was sad that efforts to alleviate poverty in the country have not been fruitful despite the abundance of NGOs in the country who purport to be fighting against poverty on the book but not doing their mandate.
“Can you imagine an organization is receiving 100 United States dollars not RTGS dollars but when it delivers the money to the beneficiaries they give them 5 dollars”
“Last year we heard the whole team from one NGO went to Mutoko to officiate the handing over of two blair toilets after they had received thousands and thousands of dollars. This is unacceptable and we know these organization and we are coming for then”
Machingauta said there are NGOs that are falsely reporting projects receiving funds then do nothing in the field which is undermining the efforts to alleviate poverty in the country.
The statements by the Ministry of Labour and social Welfare comes at a time the international community has withheld its funding to NGOs in the country due to fraud and abuse of funds by their leaders.