1. Introduction
There is before the House of Representatives a Bill for an Act to Regulate the
Acceptance and Utilization of Finance/Material contributions of Donor Agencies to
Voluntary Organisations and for matters connected therewith. The Bill states that no
voluntary organisation shall accept any foreign financial or material assistance except
with the permission of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences
Commission (ICPC). All voluntary organisations having defined, cultural, economic,
educational, religious or social programmes cannot accept foreign support except they
are registered with the ICPC in accordance with the rules to be made under the Bill
when it becomes law. All voluntary organisations will be under obligation to give ICPC
information as to the source, amount, purpose of the contribution and the manner in
which the contribution will be utilised. Voluntary organisations are to apply to ICPC for
permission to use the said funds or contributions and the ICPC shall respond within 60
days from the date of the receipt of the application.
Under the Bill, the ICPC may prohibit voluntary organisations from accepting any foreign
financial contribution if it considers that the contribution will subvert the sovereignty and
integrity of Nigeria; have adverse impact on the foreign diplomatic relations of any
country; may cause religious disharmony or be a source of money laundering. The
voluntary organisations will be obligated to maintain accounts of the expenditure of the
receipts in such manner as the ICPC may prescribe and a yearly balance sheet
submitted to the ICPC. The Bill further grants ICPC powers to seize accounts and all
other powers emanating from the ICPC principal Act. It creates offences and penalties
including criminal sanctions for whoever assists the primary offender; all shall be liable
to imprisonment for 2 years. The Bill is not applicable to transactions between the
Nigerian government and any transfers of money from another government. Voluntary
organisation is defined as an association of individuals whether incorporated or not.
Thus, the dragnet has been spread out, not only for nongovernmental organisations, but
the Church and the Mosque, Community based organisations like Village, Town and
Local government unions and meetings; clubs like Rotary and Lions clubs, etc.
2. Our Position
The provisions on the face of it are retrogressive and will only escalate existing
problems in society. Our reasons are as follows.
(i) A Surfeit of Registration: The first reason informing this position is that there is no
lacuna in the existing law. News laws are made to fill gaps and cure mischief in the
existing law by suppressing the mischief and advancing a remedy. Voluntary
organisations are required to register under the Companies and Allied Matters Act either
as incorporated trustees or companies limited by guarantee. Upon registration and
engagement in activities, they are required to file annual returns with the Corporate
Affairs Commission. Annual returns include information about the finances of the
voluntary organisation. This helps the CAC to collect information on their activities. For
NGOs, there is also the option of registering with the National Planning Commission at
the federal level and registration with the ministries concerned with social development
at the state level.
(ii) Money Laundering Already Taken Care of: The second reason is that if money
laundering is the mischief that this Bill seeks to cure, many voluntary organisations
especially NGOs have already been designated as bodies that will report to SCUML
which is the Special Control Unit against Money Laundering. They have been registered
with SCUML as Designated Non Financial Institutions and are working hard to ensure
compliance with the rules. Banks and other financial institutions are also under
obligation to render suspicious transaction reports to the Nigerian Financial Intelligence
Unit, identifying persons conducting transactions and maintaining a paper trail by
keeping adequate records of transactions. These records are available to criminal, tax
and regulatory agencies.
(iii) Terrorism Has Been Taken Care of: If the objective is to combat terrorism, the
third reason for opposing this Bill is that Nigeria has new laws to combating terrorism
including tracking down the financiers of terror and this law gives enormous powers to
the state to proceed against terrorism - Terrorism Prevention Act. Do we need to
reinvent the wheel when the existing wheel is in good order?
(iv) Increasing ICPC’s Mandate: Nigerians are all living witnesses that both the ICPC
and EFCC are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of corruption cases they have to
handle and the full implementation of other aspects of their mandate. As the fourth
reason for opposing this Bill, when another entirely strange and new mandate is added
to ICPC, it will surely grind to a halt because the capacity and resources are not there
for the increased assignments. Already, ICPC complains about poor funding, how
would ICPC cope with this expansion of mandate?
(v) Clauses Susceptible to Abuse: The Bill contains provisions that are clearly
susceptible to abuse. It confers a lot of discretion on fallible institutions and human
beings. What is the definition of integrity and sovereignty of Nigeria - an omnibus catch
phrase that can justify outrageous decisions, reminiscent of the military Decrees of old.
If a group has funding to review government policies and write a report, which
considering our daily experience with governmental performance, will be unfavourable;
will that not be against the sovereignty and integrity of Nigeria?
(vi) Increasing the Cost of Governance: The Bill when passed into law will increase
the cost of governance. This goes against the popular demand for the reduction of the
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cost of governance to free resources towards providing citizens welfare needs.
Assuming without conceding that afore-listed agencies (CAC, SCUML, etc) are not
doing their job relating to voluntary organisations well, the answer should not be to set
up another bureaucracy. The response should be to improve and reform extant
processes. ICPC complains of poor funding, so where would the new funding to execute
this mandate come from? The Bill gives ICPC the power to prescribe the form and
manner of maintaining voluntary organisations accounts; is ICPC now the Financial
Reporting Council. The FRC is by its law responsible for, among other things, developing and
publishing accounting and financial reporting standards to be observed in the preparation of
financial statements of public entities in Nigeria; and for related matters.
(vii) Emergency Interventions Have been Stopped: If this Bill becomes law, voluntary
organisations can no longer intervene in emergencies since the funds for such
intervention will be held up for 6 months by ICPC before they can use same. And by the
time the approval eventually comes, the need would no longer be there and many lives
and property would probably have been lost to unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy.
This will definitely not be in anyone’s interest.
(viii) Governmental Image and Public Perception: This Bill, coming at a time the
government is facing criticism for its poor handling of a number of issues raises the red
flag. Reasonable persons are bound to question this obvious attempt at caging civil
society organisations through holding on to their funding. At the end of the day, it will
give the government a bad image which will position it as a serial violator of human
rights and fundamental freedoms. We may be joining the league of countries like Russia
and Ethiopia which have sought to gag their civil society organisations. Nigeria’s is
already troubled by a poor image in the comity of nations; must we compound an
already existing problem?
(ix) The Bill and Fundamental Rights: The rights to freedom of association,
expression and to hold opinion would be severely curtailed by the enactment of this bill
into law. A right is empty if you denude the right of a means of enforcement or
realisation. Members of voluntary organisations will now exercise their rights subject to
the caprices of a third party who, is clearly a meddlesome interloper, this is
unacceptable in a democratic society. This Bill seeks as much as to make voluntary
organisations departments of the ICPC when they are nongovernmental. There should
be a difference between a government department and a nongovernmental
organisation. ICPC will now be in a position to declare the whole or parts of project
funding proposal unlawful without setting in motion a judicial process. This will clearly be
a usurpation of the power of the courts. The derogation clause in section 45 of the
constitution talks of any law that is reasonable justifiable in a democratic society in the
interest of defence, public safety, public order, public morality or public health or for the
purpose of protecting the rights and freedoms of other persons. We find no justification
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for this Bill on any of the aforementioned grounds. The statement of the Special
Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders in Africa, Commissioner Reine Alapinni
Gansou is also importnat. He notes that the Bill violates Nigeria’s constitution and the
African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights.
Conclusions
We urge the House of Representatives to reject this Bill for the aforementioned reasons.
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