South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir today called for passage of a new law to control the work of foreign non-governmental aid organizations (NGOs), saying they were working “without government supervision.”
Kiir was addressing the opening of a new session of the National Assembly in Juba. He said that due to the delicate situation in the country it is vital for the parliament to pass the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) bill into law.
“The current humanitarian crisis in our country and presences of many NGOs in our country… requires urgently the NGOs bill to be passed as soon as possible,” he said. “This NGOs bill shall organize and regulate the work and activities of this various organizations which are working without government supervision.”
The current draft version of the legislation has not been provided to the media. However, according to a previous version drafted in 2013 the bill would establish an regulatory ‘Coordination Board’ whose members would include National Security Service and Interior Ministry representatives.
Last year in January the president accused “the so-called humanitarian organizations” of helping his political rival Riek Machar try to seize power in the country. In November of the same year he criticized the United Nations for establishing ‘protection sites’ harboring groups of the minority ethnic Nuer, the tribe of Riek Machar.
Aid groups are currently providing services at these sites. “There was no reason for people to run into the camps,” Kiir said of the UN protection sites.
Related coverage:
S Sudan asks NGOs to fire foreign aid workers amid hunger crisis (15 Sept. 2014)
Opinion: South Sudan NGO bill ‘more onerous than Khartoum law’ (9 Dec. 2013)