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State Raids NGOs

Zimbabwe Standard (Harare)
NEWS
May 1, 2005
Posted to the web May 2, 2005

By Foster Dongozi And Rutendo Mawere

NON Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
are under siege from the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare,
which they allege is out to destroy them.
The Ministry is headed by former State Security Minister, Nicholas Goche,
believed by the two organisations to have been re-assigned in the recent
Cabinet reshuffle to 'deal' with the two groups.
Operatives from the Central Intelligence Organisation, appointed as government
inspectors, last week raided offices of several NGOs and demanded to go through
their books.
Under the Private Voluntary Organisations Act, the minister can appoint any
officers in the Public Service as Inspecting Officers.
The National Association of Non Governmental Organisation (NANGO) was raided
last week.
A statement issued by NANGO said: "We understand that the Probe Team also
includes representatives from line ministries as well as the Central
Intelligence Organisation."
NANGO added that the raids appeared to have a political dimension.
"A cursory analysis of the list of organisations that have already been probed
indicates that one of the organisations had a former founder board member who
is now a key figure in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Another
organisation is one set up by the Commercial Farmers' Union while another is a
prominent and outspoken human rights organisation."
NANGO said NGOs faced a challenge of contesting the political objectives of the
probe.
"The raids on NGOs can be used as a vindictive and punitive response to what
has been termed as subversive activities by NGOs."
Goche, The Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare told The
Standard that investigations were still going on although he could not be drawn
to disclose the number of NGO's that had been raided.
"The commission is continuing with the investigations but I have not met them
to discuss their findings and which NGO's have been investigated."
Sources in the NGO sector said Probe Teams swooped on close to 15 NGOs.
"About thirteen NGO's have been visited including NANGO, Zimrights, World
Vision and Farm Orphan Support Trust but some of the NGOs are afraid to come
out in the open and say what exactly transpired for fear of victimisation."
Several organisations contacted to confirm the raids said they could not
comment for fear of reprisals.
The director of ZimRights, Munyaradzi Bidi, confirmed that government
inspectors swooped on his offices last week.
"Four people, one woman and three males claiming they had been sent by the
Ministry of Labour called at our offices saying they had been appointed
inspectors to verify the affairs of the private voluntary organisations."
He said among the issues that the inspectors wanted to scrutinise was their
activities, sources of income, books of accounts, major donors and foreign
currency disclosures."
Bidi said the government was jittery because a lot of NGOs were close to the
people. "The government's discomfort stems from the fact that NGOs are more in
touch with the people at grassroots level than themselves."
Abisha Makondo the administration and finance manager at the Farm OrphanSupport
Trust could neither confirm nor deny the raids to this paper. Makondo said: "I
am not at liberty to disclose that information over the phone."
An official with NANGO said several organisations had been cowed into silence
by the visits.

   

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