Govt begins investigating NGOs over funding

The Zimbabwean government has appointed an eight-member taskforce to investigate allegations that 13 NGOs failed to provide details of donor funds channelled into the country through them last year. Earlier this month the government announced that it might soon de-register at least 30 NGOs because they had failed to account for part of the US $88 million sent into Zimbabwe via their organisations in response to an appeal for aid last year. Since then 17 of those NGOs had met the 11 March deadline for submitting their accounts, the official newspaper The Herald reported on Wednesday. Jonah Mudehwe, spokesman for the National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (NANGO) told IRIN the process of relaying messages of demand was seriously flawed, as some of the organisations had not received the requests from the government. During an interview with IRIN earlier this month, the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, Paul Mangwana, said that according to the Private Voluntary Organisations (PVO) Act, NGOs were required to submit periodic reports of any donor funding received as part of aid appeals made by the government, but the NGOs concerned had failed to submit audited statements of their accounts to his ministry, despite several written requests between October and December 2004.