The government of Rwanda last week tabled a bill in parliament intended to streamline the activities of NGOs in the country. The bill has gone through the first reading and is now in committee where it will be debated further and the public make their input. This is normal legislative procedure. The government drafts a bill, tables it in parliament which then debates and passes it with or without amendment, or votes against it. But some in the foreign media and civil society read mischief in the bill and made alarming claims, as did an AFP news report carried by Barron’s magazine on April 18, 2024. In the usual media descriptive extravagance, the bill is “controversial”, an amazing tag to what is clearly a straightforward and non-contentious proposed legislation. It seems hype, especially of the negative type, is mandatory when reporting about Rwanda. The timing of the bill is suspicious, according to the news report, coming so close to the dissolution of parliament before the general election on July 15. The claim is that the government wanted to rush the bill through parliament and have it passed before then. The motive apparently is to create hurdles for civil society organisations so that they cannot look too closely into the electoral process, especially the vote count. Nonsense, people close to the law-making process say. There is no connection to the elections. Work on the bill started as far back as 2019 or even earlier, long before the constitution was amended to hold presidential and parliamentary elections at the same time and the July 15 date for this year’s polls set. Another media criticism was that the proposed law was intended to “limit civic space in a country where the government is accused of crushing dissent and press freedoms.” However, they do not point to a provision in the bill that would do this. This criticism can only be the result of failure to appreciate Rwanda’s choices and that they reflect the country’s history and aspirations. Rwandans do not stifle divergent voices; they direct them towards a common position. What some call intolerance of dissent is a misunderstanding, perhaps intended, of efforts towards consensus. The news report makes another wild allegation. The proposed law is “intended to intimidate civic society and deter it from their scrutiny of government.” The implication here is that the government wants to hide something, perhaps its excesses, incompetence, and other possible misdeeds from the public. We do not hear many complaints from local civil society activists, at least not directly, beyond a general unease about coming under scrutiny themselves. Perhaps it is not even necessary that they do so. They have ample time to make their representations to the parliamentary committee before the bill is brought back for debate and enactment into law. The news reports, however, quote some local civil society leaders for their allegations. In the quick criticism of the government’s NGO bill at the stage of its first reading and imputing wrong motives for it, the NGOs might be unwittingly exposing themselves to criticism themselves. Do their concerns have sufficient grounds or are they trying to hide something? According to the government, they really have nothing to fear about its intentions. It says all it wants is to protect the interests of Rwandans, ensure that they get full benefits from what the NGOs promise to do for them, and prevent scams. It is also to ensure that they work in a coordinated, transparent manner. That should not be a problem. But obviously there is some discomfort about certain aspects of the bill. One seems to be the limitation on operating expenses that should not exceed 20% of the total budget, with the rest spent on programmes for beneficiaries. Organisations with genuine intentions to serve the people should not find an issue with that. It is probably some who see NGOs as a quick path to wealth and power or those with fraudulent intent that have a problem. The other that may cause unease is scrutiny of their operations and finances. Strange for organisations that often accuse governments of non-transparency but do not want their affairs looked into. There is obviously a question of accountability here. We know the government is accountable to citizens who put it in power. NGOs seem to be accountable only to their funders, often foreign individuals, organisations, or governments. We have been fortunate in this country that NGOs have not set themselves up as an alternative to the government as they do in some countries. In some of those places, they work to delegitimise the government and show it as ineffective, incompetent, and unresponsive to the needs of the community. The different situation here is not because our NGO leaders are exemplary and beyond reproach. Although to be fair some are. It probably has more to do with the government’s stance on NGOs since the late 1990s. The government has taken a strong position on NGOs operating in a free-for-all, uncoordinated environment in which each decides what it wants to do, how, and where, often without regard to the government’s priorities or citizens’ needs, or even in opposition to them. Where is the problem with the NGO bill if the aim is to foster order, transparency, and accountability, and ensure value for beneficiaries of NGO programmes? Everyone should actually be happy.
