A two-day training on Nonprofit Regulatory Compliance for members of the Community of Practice on Civic Space Strengthening in Anambra has ended with a call for the alleviation of burdensome nature of the operational environment under which Civil Society Organizations in Nigeria operate.
The unconducive environment, coupled with ignorance, the forum observed, poses a major hindrance to the CSOs compliance with regulatory stipulations for their practice.
The event with the theme, “Strengthening a Community of Practice to improve the CSO Regulatory Environment in Nigeria” was organized in Awka, the State Capital, with support from the EU Delegation to Nigeria and the ECOWAS (EU Commission).
According to the Program Officer at Global Rights, Damilola Decker, the multiplicity of various forms of regulations with their accompanying financial burdens greatly undermine the capacity of the CSOs, and the government needs to lighten the burden to enable CSOs carry out their responsibilities seamlessly.
He said the group had observed through its research, that many CSOs, NGOs, and other non-profitable organizations, after registering with CAC, are ignorant of the regulatory burdens and regimes they have to keep up with.
Noting this knowledge gap as a challenge, Decker said that was why Global Rights saw the need for the training in furtherance of its projects to strengthen the CSOs’ operational environment with support from EU.
“Again, while trying to improve operational environment, we realized its burdensome nature, making it difficult for CSO to comply. There are multiplicity of all forms of regulations, especially at the state level.
“Worse still, these registrations come with financial burdens and to a large extent hinders the CSOs from their good work of bridging gap between government and people.
“We keep pushing for policies that enhance CSOs operational abilities, including streamlining the regulatory processes as well as improving the CSOs knowledge to their responsibilities,” he said.
A member of the National Steering Committee, Community of Practice on Civic Space Strengthening, Nonso Orakwe said the training was an opportunity to deepen CSOs’ understanding of the laws.
Orakwe said it was also necessary for CSOs to know the policies and best practices guiding their operations.
One of the resource persons, Alfred Iortyaver, an associate member of the Chartered institute of Taxation of Nigeria, who spoke on Nonprofit Taxation raised the challenge of incivility approach of tax administrators especially at the local government level.
He stressed the need for capacity building for tax administrators, particularly on mode of tax collection as a way of curbing the uncivilized approach.
