5.5 NGOs Not Welcome?

Finally, a comment on the process of drafting the proposed bill is apposite here. We have seen that the process by which the final draft NGO Policy was formulated was participatory, if to an inadequate degree. The same cannot, however, be said of the drafting of the proposed bill. Here representation of stakeholders outside the state structures does not appear to have been considered necessary. The various NGOs which had participated in the policy processes as well as their representatives in the National Steering Committee for NGO Policy did not participate in, nor do they seem to have been aware of, the drafting of the NGO bill which has been going on at least since 1998. Nothing in the documents considered in this report indicates that the NGOs that participated in the policy processes were informed of this important fact, even though government departments that are involved in the drafting of the NGO bill such as the Registrar of Societies, the Vice-President's Office and the Attorney General's Chambers have also been participants in the policy-making processes.

The reasons for this discrepancy can only be conjectured. However, given the gulf between the provisions of final draft of the NGO Policy and those of the draft law, it is reasonable to suggest that certain sections of the government are not prepared to let go of the panoply of controls that the state has wielded over NGOs since colonial times. The thinking appears to be that to let the NGOs in on the drafting of the bill would wreck the secret legislative plans, as the NGOs are likely to demand at the very least that the draft bill be consistent with the final draft of the proposed NGO Policy.