AMENDMENTS TO THE NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS ACT

In this updater, we review the amendments to the Non-Governmental Organisations Act, No. 24 of 2002 (the NGO Act), as introduced by the Written Laws (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No.3) Act 2019 (the Miscellaneous Amendments Act).

The NGO legal framework in Tanzania has undergone some significant changes in recent years. Prior to the Miscellaneous Amendments Act, the Non-Governmental Organizations (Financial Transparency and Accountability) Regulations, G.N. 609 of 2018 (NGO Financial Regulations) introduced a number of requirements in relation to the financial reporting requirements by NGOs.

The Miscellaneous Amendments Act has amended the NGOs Act as follows:

• definition of NGO narrowed;
• Certificate of Compliance scrapped;
• additional functions for the Registrar of NGOs;
• time limit of the validity of a Certificate of Registration; and
• publication of annual audited reports has extended to the public.

Below is a summary of each of the amendments mentioned above:

Definition of a Non-Government Organisation (NGO)

The Miscellaneous Amendments Act amends the definition of NGOs to make it unambiguous as it has explicitly included Community Based Organisations (CBOs) which had previously been excluded from the definition. Ironically, although the CBOs had previously been excluded from the definition, CBOs were still being incorporated as NGOs at district level within the local government authorities without necessarily having the legal backing. With this amendment, the legal status of CBOs has been established.

However, the following will be removed from the definition of an NGO:

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