EU-ACT Laments CSOs Low Compliance Of Regulatory Framework

The European Union Agent for Citizenship Transformation (EU-ACT) has stressed the issue of poor compliance of Civil Society Organisations (CSO) on regulatory framework, attributing this to lack of the requisite knowledge and information on  regulations.

Idem Udeokong, Component II Manager, Agent For Citizenship Transformation (EU-ACT) noted that compliant to regulatory framework is paramount to sustaining and strengthening CSOs and keeping them out of trouble. 

This Udeokong stated at a two-days training for CSOs Regulatory Framework and Compliance held in Abuja, by the British Council National Technical Committee on Civil Society Self-Regulation on Monday.

"This helps to sustain the organisation as if you do not comply with the law, it may create room for abuse of the system.

"So, regulations help credibility in organisations as they always advocate for change and reform.

"They also need to be credible enough to fight the cause as research shows low compliance of CSOs to relevant.

"This low compliance is because they do not understand what they have to do.

"For example, filing annual returns for companies in allied matters act.

"We expect them to have better knowledge of the law and comply the more.

"We want to see the level of compliance go up as a result of this training, which will be ten rounds of training around marked sates, then the states networks," he said.

This assertion was reinforced by the outcome of survey conducted by EU-ACT programme in March 2021 to establish the current levels of compliance with legal frameworks amongst its supported CSOs/Networks/CBOs in the FCT, Lagos, Sokoto, Kano, Rivers, Edo, Adamawa, Enugu, Plateau and Borno States. 

The EU-ACT, survey findings, indicated that out of the 119 CSOs’ responses that were processed, less than a third of the CSOs were compliant with the Company Allied Matters Act, less than 10% of the CSOs were fully tax compliant and only 14% of the CSOs were SCUML compliant. 

On his part, Prof. Adedeji Adekunle in his address reiterated that compliance to regulation is knowledge-driven as sometimes organisations do not know what to do per time and people are scared of meeting regulations which sometimes indicate they have something to hide.

"These regulations if not adhered to have penalties as if these documents and resolutions is not on paper it looks fishy as this also help the government to know the organisation is still in practice and not in extinction. 

Terver Ayua, Special Assistant Registrar General, Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), stated the need to deepen the knowledge on compliance and how it will benefit the regulator and those who are regulated.

"Some of these CSOs are not shying from compliance but sometime they have issues on how best it can be achieved.

"So, the office of the CAC is here to throw more light on how it can be done in a seamless manner as registration is a two way traffic.

"We expect that entities should comply with requirements of the registration as this is the way the commission can regulate CSO."

One of the participants, James Ugochukwu of African Centre for Enterprenuership Information and Development, said the CSOs complement activities of the  government.

Thus, the over regulation of the space will be shutting doors to more person engaging in Civil activities.

Ugochukwu said, "Persons come into CSOs to help solve a concern that people suffer.

"What we expect the government to do is to make the space safer for more persons to engage not to create stringent laws.

"These laws are shrinking the CSOs space, these laws most times do not work positively.

"They are over regulating the activities of the CSOs," he said.