SRI LANKA: NGOs Stunned By Move to Monitor Activities

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Mar 19 1998 (IPS) - Sri Lanka shelved a controversial new plan to control non-governmental organisations (NGOs) two years ago but in a stunning about-turn re-introduced the legislation, earlier this month, and passed it in Parliament.

The manner in which the Chandrika Kumaratunga-led government passed the new law, on the day the main opposition United National Party (UNP) began a boycott of Parliament, shocked NGOs, prompting some of them to contest its legitimacy in court.

“We want to know why the government, while promising to shelve the bill in 1995 on representations made by NGOs, decided to suddenly re-introduce it and pass it in parliament while the UNP was absent,” said Dr. Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA).

On Mar. 16, the CPA filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the law and saying it was unconstitutional. Three other individuals, working for NGOs, also filed similar petitions in their private capacity.

But two days later on Wednesday, the court rejected the petitions on the grounds that the law was already on the statute book and cannot be reversed.

The controversial law, which comes as an amendment to the Voluntary Social Services Act, allows the minister in charge to appoint an interim board of management to run an organisation where allegations of fraud or misappropriation have surfaced.

Sri Lankan NGOs are very concerned. According to Rohan Edirisinghe of the CPA, the amendment is a dangerous tool in the hands of the government to control independent associations. “It allows government intervention even if there is merely an accusation of fraud,” he said.

This is not the first time that the state has sought to intrude in the running of NGOs. In 1980, the Voluntary Social Services Act was promulgated to register and supervise private volunteer groups despite opposition from NGOs and rights groups.

That Act made registration of voluntary organisations compulsory. It also empowered the registrar (an official appointed under the Act) to enter and inspect the premises, bring to the notice of the minister any allegation of fraud and to even attend meetings of organisations on the minister’s authorisation.

The human rights group Civil Rights Movement (CRM), at the time, pointed out that “to empower a government official to attend the meetings of an association is the most gross infringement of the right of freedom of expression.”

The CRM said it was appalled by the manner in which the Kumaratunga government “unexpectedly, hurriedly resurrected and passed within a matter of minutes” the bill in Parliament this month.

“The absence of the opposition should not, in CRM’s view, be allowed to affect the rights of the public, particularly in a matter affecting the freedom of association where strong representations had been made, and where the passage of time could reasonably give rise to the expectation that these representations had been heeded,” the NGO said in a statement.

There are about 300 recognised NGOs in Sri Lanka working mostly in health, education and child-related activities, and in recent years in caring for refugees displaced by the ethnic conflict. That apart there are hundreds of small community-level agencies which would also be governed by the new law.

In the late 1980s, a government commission recommended a tightening of regulations on voluntary groups following reports that some organisations were misappropriating funds or funding Tamil separatist rebels.

The Voluntary Social Service Act was not welcomed by Sri Lankan NGOs (the law does not apply to international groups based on the island), and was called “unacceptable” by the CRM.

The People’s Alliance government rushed through the amendment during the main opposition UNP’s boycott of Parliament. UNP members decided to stay away in protest against the harassment and intimidation of the government’s political opponents

Soon after the UNP walked out of Parliament, the government rushed through 21 bills, including the controversial NGO amendment, before adjourning proceeding for the day.

UNP parliamentarian Mahinda Samarasinghe said the government had promised the bill would be debated. “Despite this agreement they went ahead and smuggled the bill through Parliament,” he said.

Jeevan Theagarajah of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies,

which includes local and foreign groups, said the government would have been wiser to allow issues like mismanagement and fraud to be handled by the relevant authorities like the police.

“State interference is a dangerous precedent. Funders would prefer to seek legal remedies rather than seek state intervention as a short cut,” he said.

NGOs wonder how the government intends to monitor the activities of all voluntary groups in Sri Lanka. Theagarajah thinks it will be impossible. “There are some 3,000 community- level groups in the eastern district of Amparai alone,” he says.