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Rejoyce Sibanda, Chronicle Reporter
THE Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare has deregistered 291 private voluntary organisations (PVOs) for failure to comply with the prescribed regulations that guide their operations.
In a statement yesterday, the ministry said the Registrar of Private Voluntary Organisations in conjunction with the PVO Board deregistered the organisations based on their non-compliant operations with the provisions of Section 10 of the Private Voluntary Organisation Act (Chapter 17:05).
The ministry has since directed the concerned organisations, whose names have been published in the notice, to approach the office of the Registrar of PVOs and surrender their certificates with immediate effect.
Among these are entities based in Matabeleland region such as the Matabeleland Irish Association, Girl Guides Association Matabeleland Province, Ilanda/Woodlands Women’s Institute, Bulawayo Muslim Association, Jairos Jiri Memorial Trust, Makokoba Welfare and Development Organisation, and Senior Citizens Day Club.
Section 10 of the PVO Act (Chapter 17:05) states that the board has the power to cancel any certificate of registration for a POV at any time if it fails to comply with any condition of its registration and if it ceases to function as a private voluntary organisation.
The Act further states that the deregistration can be a result of objection in respect of which the organisation was registered as being merely ancillary or incidental to the other objective of the organisations.
Moreover, the Act states that when the secretary of the registered PVO fails to report and submit books, accounts, and records to the registrar within the prescribed period, the organisation is liable to be deregistered.
“The cancellation of a certificate of registration under this section or the deletion therefrom of any of the objects in respect of which the organisation in question was registered, shall be published by the Registrar in the Gazette and shall take effect as from the date mentioned in such publication, whether or not the certificate has been lodged with the Registrar in compliance with a request made under subsection (4),” reads the POV Act.
In September 2021, Cabinet received and approved the proposed amendments to the Private Voluntary Organisations Act, which were presented by the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Ziyambi Ziyambi.
In a post-Cabinet media briefing at that time, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa, said the amendment was necessitated by the rampant growth of ‘terrorist activities’, which the present Act was silent about.
The amendment was put in place to combat money laundering and financing of terrorism by any individual or institution in Zimbabwe operating under the PVOs banner.
Furthermore, it was to streamline the administrative procedures for PVOs to ensure their efficient registration, regulation, and combating of the financing of terrorism.-@ReeSibanda
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