President Samia’s five suggestions to civil society

President Samia Suluhu Hassan launches the Electronic NGOs report on national development at the annual meeting of the Non-Governmental Organization (NGOs) in Dodoma yesterday. With her is the Minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Dorothy Gwajima. PHOTO | STATE HOUSEBy 

Josephine Christopher

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Summary

• The Head of State urged NGOs to come up with agendas that augur well for government plans - pointing out that law observance, traditional values, transparency and accountability are of paramount importance

Dar es Salaam. President Samia Suluhu Hassan yesterday advised Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to come up with alternative ways that wouldhelp reduce financial dependence on foreign donors.

The President made the remark in Dodoma when addressing the national NGOs conference, stressing strategic plans that will lead them to financial dependence.

The Head of State also urged the NGOs to come up with agendas that augur well for government plans, pointing out that law observance, traditional values, transparency and accountability were of paramount importance.

On financial freedom, she said as the global agenda changes year-in year-out, so does the direction of donor funds, thus depending solely on only donors has caused failure for some organisations to achieve their goals.

“I want you to sit together and devise a strategic plan on how in-stitutions can still gain funds even when none is coming from the do-nors,” said the President.

President Hassan also instructed the organisations to promote transparency and accountability, as data shows regardless of having registration there are many NGOs that are currently non-operational.

She said: “In over 11, 000 regis-tered organisations, data shows that only 4,463 are active, which means that there are over 7, 000 NGOs not known if they have ceased to exist or they are just non-active,”

The President stated that this may have come as a result of impulsive establishment of organisations, just because of getting funds.

“When the world is on environmental issues, you will see a lot of environmental NGOs, the same as when the global agenda is on children, many organisations on children will be established, this is be-cause they know it will be easy to get funds,” she said.

On the same note, the President advised the non-profit organisations to align their humanitarian missions with the government development plans.

Aligning strategies with that of national policies such as the five-year development plans, would provide a good coalition between the government and the organisations, she said.

“I urge you to observe customs and Tanzanian values in all that you do,” she said.

The President said the government would continue to support the NGOs in the country includ-ing easing the process of work permits applications which is currently done online.

She said now foreigners can ob-tain work permits within a day through digital applications, from 14 days or more which was the timeline on getting permits in the past.

She said the government is also currently in the final stages of producing a brochure which will provide guidelines on which charity organisations will be exempted from paying tax.

In addition, President Hassan yesterday launched a report on the contribution of NGOs to the country’s development.

According to the ministry of health’s Permanent Secretary on Social Development, Dr John Jingu, said the report gave an image on the organisations in the country as well as evaluate their performance from January to December 2020.