Governments lifts ban on 37 local NGOs

The Ethiopian government on Tuesday lifted a ban on some 37 local NGOs out of 87 humanitarian organisations whose activities had been suspended for some time for “failure to live up to their mandate,” the Walta Information Centre reported. The head of the foreign relations and development cooperation bureau, Tilahun Tefera, told WIC that although the contributions of the organisations to social development were “praiseworthy”, some of the organisations had been operating “outside the law” and their activities had to be suspended and subjected to re-evaluation. He further explained that the major weaknesses of the NGOs included working outside their contracts, unnecessary administrative expenditures and starting more projects before finishing those already launched.