PRESS RELEASE

RIGHT OF REPLY: JOINT STATEMENT OF THE CIVIL SOCIETY

ORGANIZATIONS REFERENCE GROUP (CSORG), INTER RELIGIOUS
COUNCIL OF KENYA (IRCK), AND THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF NONGOVERNMENTAL
ORGANIZATIONS
(NGOs
COUNCIL)
ON
THE
PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO THE PUBLIC BENEFITS ORGANIZATIONS
ACT, 2013
THE Civil Society Organizations Reference Group (CSORG), Inter Religious
Council of Kenya (IRCK), and the National Council of Non-Governmental
Organizations (NGOs Council) are perturbed by a statement released by the
NGOs Co-ordination Board to the media to the effect that jointly with the
Ministry of Devolution and Planning; the Board has submitted proposed
amendments to the Public Benefits Organizations (PBO) Act, 2013 to the
National Assembly.
EQUALLY disturbing is the claim in the statement that the Task Force on the
Proposed Amendments to the PBO Act recommended that the law be
amended before its operationalization.
WE wish to state that the overarching recommendation of the Task Force as
indeed the overwhelming views collected from stakeholders and the general
public is that the

2013 Act be implemented without any further delay

considering that it was debated, approved and enacted into law by retired
President H.E. Mwai Kibaki on January 14, 2013.
Indeed, in all the public hearings that the Task Force conducted throughout
the country, all presentations and memoranda submitted by the various
stakeholders were unanimous that only immediate implementation of the Act
will help consolidate the gains that Kenyans have made in the exercise of
their

constitutionally

protected

rights

and

freedoms

of

expression,

association and participation in the management of public affairs.

In addition to having representation in the Task Force, The CSORG attended
and documented on video and audio ALL its regional and stakeholder

meetings apart from a meeting with Members of National Assembly. The

CSORG has developed a shadow report based on this documentary evidence.
The report demonstrates an overwhelming majority of Kenyans asking for the
commencement of the Act without any amendments.
IT is quite telling that while the NGOs Coordination Board went out of its way
to enumerate some of the organizations that were represented in the Hon.
Sophia Abdi Task Force on the Proposed Amendments to the PBO Act, the
Executive Director of the NGOs Coordination Board, Fazul Mohammed found
it convenient not to point out that he was the representative of the Board in
the Task Force as an interested party and, as such, lost the moral ground to
spearhead the implementation of the Act that has been unnecessarily
delayed for more than two years.
One of the cardinal values and principles of governance articulated in Article
10 of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 that binds all State organs, including
State and Public Officers of who the Cabinet Secretary for Devolution and
Planning, Hon. Anne Waiguru and the NGOs Coordination Board Executive
Director Fazul Mohammed are an integral part is accountability.
YET despite the clarity of such constitutional ethos of governance, the
Cabinet Secretary has once again chosen not to be guided by the obviously
compelling right of the public whose resources were spent on the Task Force
to make the report public, in complete and arrogant defiance of Article 35 on
the right of the public and stakeholders to information.
The CSORG, IRCK, and the NGO Council wish to point out that right from the
time of their appointments, the Cabinet Secretary for Devolution and
Planning and the Executive Director of the NGOs Coordination Board have
acted with such impunity against the civil society as though they are above
the law, including the supreme law of the land.

A case in point is the obtaining situation at the NGOs Coordination Board

where the term of all Directors save for that of the Executive Director expired
in March 2015 yet Fazul Mohammed has the audacity to claim that the
Board reviewed the Task Force Report and recommendations and has since
forwarded the proposed amendments to the Attorney General and the Clerk
of the National Assembly for inclusion in the Miscellaneous Amendments Bill
2015.
Mr. Fazul Mohammed owes the public an explanation as to who else, other
than himself, sat in the Board that reviewed the Task Force report and its
recommendations and forwarded the proposed amendments to the AG and
the Clerk of the National Assembly for inclusion in the Miscellaneous
Amendments Bill 2015. His eloquence when deregistering NGOs for not
abiding by due process is not matched by due diligence when he purports
to be executing decisions of a board that does not exist!
It is the position of the CSORG, IRCK, and the NGOs Council that any
decisions that the NGOs Coordination Board has made after the expiry of the
term of the Board, including the alleged deregistration of some NGOs, are
null and void as it is only the Board that is mandated by the law to make
public policy decisions.
The letter and spirit of the NGO Coordination Act of 1990 that established the
NGO Coordination Board did not envisage the situation now obtaining at the
Board, where one man Fazul Mohammed sits with the Secretariat and
claims that whatever decision is made at such staff meeting is a decision of
the Board. There cannot be a Board without directors and Fazul Mohammed
should be aware that whatever decisions he claims to have been made by
the Board are challengeable in Court.
WE, THE CSORG, IRCK, and the NGOs Council wish to reiterate our demand
that the Cabinet Secretary for Devolution and Planning comes out of her self-

constructed cocoon of impunity and make the report of the Task Force on the
Proposed Amendments to the PBO Act public.
It is only through the immediate commencement of the Public Benefits
Organizations Act without unwarranted State-instigated amendments that
the civil society can consolidate the gains and deepen its collaboration and
respectful partnership with the government in serving the public. Immediate
implementation of the law will also go a long way in unshackling the NGOs
Coordination Board from the current shenanigans and the one-man show that
it has become after the expiry of the term of its previous Board of Directors.