NGOs should not be milking cows

A recent probe launched by the Senate into the financial operations of an NGO is, to some extent, long overdue. Some people have been able to slip through the legal loopholes and created NGOs that are no less different than cooperatives. The NGO in question is actually an umbrella organisation of over 150 smaller NGOs working in the HIV/Aids field who each pay between Frw 100,000 and Frw200,000 as a membership fee! In 1994, right after the Genocide, there was a proliferation of humanitarian do-gooders who invaded this country and out-drove each other with their logo-emblazoned SUVs. Post Genocide Rwanda was a goldmine in the humanitarian sense: The stories were so grim, that a single paragraph sent to well-wishers back home was enough to start the money tap running full speed. But the larger-than-necessary number of NGOs can sometimes have adverse effects on a country’s image, as Rwanda was to discover later before showing most of them the door. There was no way these NGOs, would get funding coming if things went back into order, so many took the only option; doctoring their reports to show that they were braving hazards in a country littered with dead bodies, orphans. Their raison d’etre was a country in turmoil that desperately needed their presence. Now it seems some of our local NGOs are suspected of using their cooperative-cum-NGO to make a killing of over Frw 200 million a year which is used to pay the salaries of people manning the secretariat! As the saying goes, there is no smoke without fire. NGos have to come clean A recent probe launched by the Senate into the financial operations of an NGO is, to some extent, long overdue. Some people have been able to slip through the legal loopholes and created NGOs that are no less different than cooperatives. The NGO in question is actually an umbrella organisation of over 150 smaller NGOs working in the HIV/Aids field who each pay between Frw 100,000 and Frw200,000 as a membership fee! In 1994, right after the Genocide, there was a proliferation of humanitarian do-gooders who invaded this country and out-drove each other with their logo-emblazoned SUVs. Post Genocide Rwanda was a goldmine in the humanitarian sense: The stories were so grim, that a single paragraph sent to well-wishers back home was enough to start the money tap running full speed. But the larger-than-necessary number of NGOs can sometimes have adverse effects on a country’s image, as Rwanda was to discover later before showing most of them the door. There was no way these NGOs, would get funding coming if things went back into order, so many took the only option; doctoring their reports to show that they were braving hazards in a country littered with dead bodies, orphans. Their raison d’etre was a country in turmoil that desperately needed their presence. Now it seems some of our local NGOs are suspected of using their cooperative-cum-NGO to make a killing of over Frw 200 million a year which is used to pay the salaries of people manning the secretariat! As the saying goes, there is no smoke without fire. NGos have to come clean A recent probe launched by the Senate into the financial operations of an NGO is, to some extent, long overdue. Some people have been able to slip through the legal loopholes and created NGOs that are no less different than cooperatives. The NGO in question is actually an umbrella organisation of over 150 smaller NGOs working in the HIV/Aids field who each pay between Frw 100,000 and Frw200,000 as a membership fee! In 1994, right after the Genocide, there was a proliferation of humanitarian do-gooders who invaded this country and out-drove each other with their logo-emblazoned SUVs. Post Genocide Rwanda was a goldmine in the humanitarian sense: The stories were so grim, that a single paragraph sent to well-wishers back home was enough to start the money tap running full speed. But the larger-than-necessary number of NGOs can sometimes have adverse effects on a country’s image, as Rwanda was to discover later before showing most of them the door. There was no way these NGOs, would get funding coming if things went back into order, so many took the only option; doctoring their reports to show that they were braving hazards in a country littered with dead bodies, orphans. Their raison d’etre was a country in turmoil that desperately needed their presence. Now it seems some of our local NGOs are suspected of using their cooperative-cum-NGO to make a killing of over Frw 200 million a year which is used to pay the salaries of people manning the secretariat! As the saying goes, there is no smoke without fire. NGos have to come clean A recent probe launched by the Senate into the financial operations of an NGO is, to some extent, long overdue. Some people have been able to slip through the legal loopholes and created NGOs that are no less different than cooperatives. The NGO in question is actually an umbrella organisation of over 150 smaller NGOs working in the HIV/Aids field who each pay between Frw 100,000 and Frw200,000 as a membership fee! In 1994, right after the Genocide, there was a proliferation of humanitarian do-gooders who invaded this country and out-drove each other with their logo-emblazoned SUVs. Post Genocide Rwanda was a goldmine in the humanitarian sense: The stories were so grim, that a single paragraph sent to well-wishers back home was enough to start the money tap running full speed. But the larger-than-necessary number of NGOs can sometimes have adverse effects on a country’s image, as Rwanda was to discover later before showing most of them the door. There was no way these NGOs, would get funding coming if things went back into order, so many took the only option; doctoring their reports to show that they were braving hazards in a country littered with dead bodies, orphans. Their raison d’etre was a country in turmoil that desperately needed their presence. Now it seems some of our local NGOs are suspected of using their cooperative-cum-NGO to make a killing of over Frw 200 million a year which is used to pay the salaries of people manning the secretariat! As the saying goes, there is no smoke without fire. NGos have to come clean Ends

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NGOs should not be milking cows