The Public Benefit Organisations Regulatory Authority (PBORA), formerly the NGO Coordination Board, is encouraging organisations to file annual returns as it emerges that only 2,829 have filed out of 12,000 registered organisations.
Speaking during the commemoration of NGOs Week at Mama Ngina Water Front in Mombasa, PBORA Director Mwangangi Mwania said the returns will assist the government in planning and to know the money the NGOs have pumped into the country.
“We can also direct them to areas that need more support. If they don’t make returns, we won’t be able to know what they are doing, whether they are moribund or need more support in terms of regulations,” said Mwania.
He encouraged the organisations to be accountable by performing functions they have been mandated to avoid being sanctioned.
Mwania reiterated the government’s commitment to implement the new law, the Public Benefit Organisations Act, 2013, which came into force on May 14, 2024, after court cases that halted its operationalization.The act has repealed the Non-Governmental Organisations Co-ordination Act, of 1990, and all NGOs will now be known as Public Benefits Organisations (PBOs) and will have one year since the operationalization of the act to register as PBOs.The new law gives space to PBOs by encouraging self-regulation and is progressive. Mwania lauded PBOs for augmenting government efforts to develop the country.