Over 30 members of the Civil Society Organisations, CSOs, in the SouthwestRegion recently met to reflect on the legal framework governing CSO’s in Cameroon.

The main objective of the workshop, organised by Reach Out Cameroon funded by the Civil Society Strengthening Programme, PASC, is to consolidate efforts already put in place during ACSOS I, to build the organisational, institutional, technical and communication capacity of CSO’s in the Southwest, so that they can play a significant role in the political, economic and social governance of the Region.

According to the Executive Director of Reach Out Cameroon, Esther Omam; “The civil society has a legal framework which governs our activities and we see that there are many weaknesses floundering that legal framework which we need to address.We have come here on behalf of our organisations to reflect on the raison d’etre of that legal framework and come up with strong recommendations that will guide future actions,” Omam added.

Participants were not satisfied with the 1990 Law on the creation and registration of CSOs. According to the Regional Secretary of theNational Commission of Human Rights and Freedoms NCHF, TambeTiku, it was necessary for the provisions to be introduced in the 1999 Law which was drawn up as an amendment of the 1990 Law. Some of the provisions, he said, have become obsolete and are no more working with the goals of CSOs.

“We are reflecting on the legal framework to see some of the suggestions that can be made to correct some of these irregularities,” Tambe told The Post. According to the Head of the Cultural and Social Division at the Southwest Governor’s Office,Julius Tata, many associations and businessmen today pass for NGOs in order to do business, meanwhile, an NGO is not supposed to be involved in profit-making. For an NGO to be credible,it has to respect the laws and regulations governing the sector.

“If an NGO is involved in business proper, it ceases to be an NGO and where such instances are brought to the attention of the administration, the authorities take their responsibility to draw the attention of promoters of such NGO to abide by the law”.

To Tambe, the law on registration is very strict because, to become an NGO, you must operate as an association for a number of years before qualifying to apply for the status of an NGO. However, he maintained that most of these associations operate for many years and are never given the opportunity to change their status

“It is not often their fault, but it is because of administrative laxity that some of the applications are dumped and nobody cares to visit them, the administrators are very reluctantto effect the procedure that are laid down by the law, as such, there are associations that have existed for more than 15 years and still maintainthe status of an association,” Tambe said.