By Damali Mukhaye
Non Government Organisations (NGOs) are angry with President Museveni for calling them mercenaries despite ‘their tremendous contribution towards national development.’Speaking during their quarterly meeting with top officials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs on Tuesday, the executive director of Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWADE), Ms Patricia Munabi, said they continue to face negative narratives and attacks from government officials, the latest one coming from President Museveni who called them mercenaries. “Despite the overwhelming recognition for our role in Uganda’s development trajectory coupled with the critical role we play in filling service delivery gaps and advocacy, over the past period, the sector has witnessed negative narratives and verbal attacks from senior government officials towards the sector. Most recently, media reports quoted the President referring to Civil Society Organisations (CSO) as ‘mercenaries’. This is not good,” Ms Munabi said.Ms Sarah Bireete, the executive director of Centre for the Constitutional Governance, said the government should not attack CSOs for working with foreign countries because the partners who fund NGOs are the same who fund the government.“We face attacks that we are foreign agents yet when you look at partnerships that fund our activities, they are the same people who fund the government just that our role is to promote the citizens participation,” Ms Bireete said.“When the fountain of honor refers to us a “mercenaries”, where does he generate that when we both work with the same actors? It is an attack and it comes at a time when we are going into elections and the major elections observers are CSOs and it is us. We are citizens and have a right to participate in our elections. Where does the battle begin and how can it be resolved,” Ms Bireete added.Govt reactionThe State Minister for Internal Affairs, Mr Obiga Kania, said if President Museveni referred to CSOs as mercenaries, it is based on evidence and they should work on their behaviour if they do not want to be called that.“The Issue of illegal activities or criminal activities by NGOs cuts across the world. Some NGOs misbehave. If the Head of State makes such a statement, it means he is serious. He must be having evidence to his statement so I cannot ask him why he did it,” Mr Obiga said.He warned the non-government agencies from being partisan during the forthcoming elections .He, however, said as of September 18, the government had validated 2,207 NGOs out of the more than 14,000 that were operating, asserting that the exercise is still underway.
