ADDIS ABABA–Charities and Societies Agency plans to curb its organizational turnover and fulfill required resources to efficiently oversee Civic Societies (CSOs) ahead of ongoing revision of CSOs law, expected to ease restriction and give more freedom to the entities.
The country is revising its existing CSOs law, seen by many critics as a repressive law. The revised law is being reported to be on final draft stage. As human right groups optimism rises, number of CSOs is expected to grow following the laws approval. Newly appointed Agency Director General Jimma Delebo told The Ethiopian Herald that as to assessment, the Agency’s human resource turnover has reached 50 percent mainly for unsatisfactory benefit packages.
Consequently Jimma said that Agency’s poor services been source of complaints among CSOs. Some even described the poor service delivery as being more difficult than the proclamation itself. “I believe that the Agency’s constraints in terms of human and material resources should be alleviated.”
“We have ardent job ahead of us to address this pressing problem.” The monitoring and evaluation muscles of the Agency are no fewer burdens to charities and societies. Due to this, the guidelines in effect go even to the level of overriding the proclamation [621/2009]. Thus, our aim is now to flex our supportive muscle.
With regard to its accountability, the Director General further noted the Agency now reports to the Federal Attorney General which is a controversial issue. The draft law suggests that it needs to report to parliament.
“I don’t think the Agency is one of the democratic institutions. It is part of the executive organ. There is no even international experience for the such regulatory body to fall in the hands of the legislature,” he added, “frankly speaking, whether it falls in the executive or legislature wing, what matters most is respecting law. The leadership of the Agency should be loyal to the law. What protects us is the law. And we’ll prove it in practice as well. That is what I believe.”
The Ethiopian Herald, November 30/2018
BY DESTA GEBREHIWOT
