British Council Urges CSO to comply with Regulatory Frameworks

The British Council has urged the Civil Society Organizations, CSO, in Enugu State to comply with the CSO Regulatory Frameworks to be in good stead with the International best practices of their organizations.

In a training, at Enugu on Thursday, for CSOs in the state, by Agents for Citizens-driven Transformation, ACT, Programme, consultant for the British Council, Prof Adedeji Adekunle asked the participating organizations that have not complied with the Frameworks to voluntarily comply with the set down regulations now than wait to be prosecuted, if found wanting.

He disclosed that compliance with the framework became necessary following discoveries that some CSO international funding was diverted into terrorism financing.

Aspects of compliance, Adekunle enumerated include four governance frameworks such as in Companies and Allied Matters Act, Anti-money laundry regulations, Federal Inland Revenue Service, and Pension Matters.

He said that the basic need for the training was for the CSOs to be responsible to comply with the laws since the NGOs assist communities and the developing partners were concerned about not to be accused of funding organizations that breach national regulations.

“For instance, when you talk about anti-money laundering, it’s important that when some of these NGOs receive money from external bodies, they should report what they received because a number of organizations have been implicated in receiving money from abroad and these funds were channeled to terrorism financing.

“So these are the reasons why it’s critical that NGOs and CSOs comply with all these laws and that is what we are trying to do in this workshop,” said Adekunle.

British Council’s Component II Manager for the ACT Programme, Mr. Idem Udoekong noted that the essence of the training was to observe the rules and regulations governing Civil Society Organizations so that they could comply.