Analysts have also accused President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s
government of deploying the law to settle political scores while exhibiting an
insatiable appetite to defuse opposition parties’ power.
The PVO Amendment Bill was gazetted on Friday last week.
It states that leaders of NGOs that fund political parties
or candidates will face up to a year in prison.
The amendments bar PVOs from supporting or opposing any
political party or candidate in Zimbabwe’s elections.
The PVOs “violating” this provision would be guilty of an
offence and fined a Level 12 penalty or face imprisonment for a period not
exceeding one year, or both.
A Level 12 fine exceeds ZW$30 000 (US$309) and is imposed
at the courts.
This is also extended to foreign organisations that solicit
funds for political parties in breach of the Political Parties Finance Act.
According to Veritas, the Bill, whose stated purpose is to
amend the PVO Act to comply with Financial Action Taskforce (FATF)
recommendations made to Zimbabwe to prevent money laundering and financing of
terrorism, gives broad discretion to the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and
Social Welfare over the activities of PVOs.
“This broad approach could mean the new legislation could
be applied selectively or with bias to silence or frustrate organisations
targeted by the ministry for reasons other than suspected financing of
terrorist activities,” it said.
“Section 2(3) would give the minister wide discretion to
designate any type of entity as being at high risk for terrorist financing
which allows him/her to subject the entity or such an organisation to measures
that can interfere with its free operations.
“Section 2(4) empowers the Registrar to make trustees of
trusts registered with the High Court write sworn statements to stop collecting
public contributions which can impede funding and operations,” Veritas added.
In Section 13(a), Veritas argues, when PVOs make
organisational changes, they might be required to re-register by the Registrar
who may reject the application.
“This gives the authorities latitude to deny registration
to any perceived errant organisations. According to Section 21, the minister will
be able to replace a PVO’s executive provisional members, allowing the minister
to meddle in organisational internal affairs without any Court oversight,” it
said.
“Section 22(2) as proposed in the Bill provides that the
minister must carry out risk assessments of organisations every five years. But
the section is silent on the need for the minister to engage the organisations
in this risk assessment process.”
While some NGOs in Harare indicated that they were still
scrutinising the proposed amendments, they, however, accused the government of
trying to invade the democratic space occupied by the civil society and destroy
the NGOs.
In an interview, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum
executive director Musa Kika said the Bill was preceded by several
pronouncements by the government and ruling Zanu PF party against the work of
CSOs.
He said the pronouncements give the CSOs reason to worry
that the agenda is to curtail their work.
“The target is clearly those who work in governance,
democracy and human rights spaces. Unfortunately, no society can be functional
without a vibrant organised civil society to keep power holders in check, and
to build an active and engaged citizenry,” Kika said.
“If we see these as threats, then we are retrogressive indeed
as a society. Our hope is that a law that seeks to kill this should not see the
light of the day.”
Farai Maguwu, the founding director of the Centre for
Natural Resource Governance, said the amendments gave the minister too much
power to meddle in the affairs of independent CSOs.
He said there was a deliberate attempt by the government to
capture the civic society space.
“Actually a lot of powers are given to the minister to
appoint and there is no due process that is followed. There is no board that is
going to decide who is suitable to be appointed,” Maguwu said.
“So you may have some politically connected individuals
with some political interests being appointed on paper to run the affairs of an
organisation for six months but in principle to destroy it.”
He also questioned the rationale behind the Bill on
tackling terrorism.
“The big question we have is, is Zimbabwe under a threat of
terrorist attacks. Secondly, if it is so, what is the level of that attack and
what is the nature of that attack?
“Is it going to be a bomb blast targeting certain people?
Is it going to be an insurrection or rebel movement fighting to overthrow a
legitimate government?
“If those factors are established, the question is, is
there any evidence linking civic society to any attempts to commit acts of
terrorism?” he queried.
Maguwu also challenged government to produce evidence
linking civil society to threats of terrorism.
“There is also need for government to do a thorough
definition of terrorism? What is their understanding of terrorism? As we have
seen elsewhere, the word or the concept of terrorism has been the most abused
term since 9/11,” he said.
“A lot of governments that are afraid of democracy and
human rights have used terrorism narrative to stamp down on descent, to shut
down the civic space.”
On the issue of PVOs being involved in politics, he
challenged the government to give a clear definition of terms on what
constitutes involvement in politics.
The PVOs constitute a basket of factors with some working
on the human rights element, teaching people about their rights, he argued.
“They denounce human rights violations. And as we know
human rights violations have got perpetrators. So we risk having a situation
where perpetrators of human rights abuses may interpret advocates of human
rights as being involved in politics and unlawfully ban PVOs which are only
doing their work which is defined in their founding documents and also not at
war with the constitution of Zimbabwe,” he said.
Analyst Alexander Rusere said the government was declaring
war against the civil society in Zimbabwe.
“The unfortunate part of the Mnangagwa government is that
it is exhibiting an insatiable appetite to punish or block any dissenting
voices. You look at the deployment of the law to secure political means. The
idea here is not necessarily rule of law but rule by law where you are
deploying the law not specifically to seek the end or means of justice but to
settle political scores,” he said. Zimbabwe Independent
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