Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) are not making much impact in Nigeria, due to their being burdened with multiple regulatory laws, with some of such laws having insidious provisions that tend to stifle their operations.
This is contained in the communique of a three-day National Conference on Civil Society Regulatory Environment in Nigeria.
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The event was supported by the European Union (EU) Delegation to Nigeria and West Africa and EU-Agents for Citizen-driven Transformation (EI-ACT) Programme, British Council, Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) and USAID-Strengthening Civic Advocacy and Local Engagement (SCALE) aimed at improving the civil society regulatory environment in Nigeria.
The communique said, “Many civil society organizations do not have access to the needed information on existing guidelines of the non-profit sector which makes them fall short of the compliance requirements.
“CSOs in Nigeria are currently burdened with multiple regulatory laws and some of such laws have very insidious provisions that tend to stifle the CSOs’ operational environment. The idea of CSO self-regulations does not preclude statutory regulation. As such, the CSO self-regulation framework is built on mechanisms in extant laws.
“CSOs are burdened by multiple regulatory procedures including the registration stage with the CAC, verification by SCUML and tax filing process with FIRS. The issue of CSOs taxation in Nigeria is still shrewd in a lot of myths and misconceptions.”
They noted that item 32 Part 1 of the second schedule of the 1999 constitution that deals with incorporation, regulation and winding up of bodies corporate has been widely interpreted to mean that only the federal government can incorporate entities, which has resulted in State /Local Government registration of CSOs not affording any legal entity status to CSOs so registered.
“This has led to sub-nationally registered CSOs being excluded from the support of funders that chose to work with only legal entities. CSOs are an integral part of a democratic process. It is therefore an aberration for democratic institutions to seemingly be at loggerheads with the civil society sector,” they said.
“CSOs in Nigeria have always been regulated but recently introduced regulations such as amended CAMA 2020 and the proposed NGO Regulation Bill have provisions that cast doubt on the intentions of the government. These kinds of regulations are what continue to put both regulatory agencies and civil society actors at loggerheads.
“Item 32 Part 1 of the second schedule of the 1999 constitution that deals with incorporation, regulation and winding up of bodies corporate must be moved from the Exclusive list to the Concurrent list of the Constitution to empower state governments with the legal backing to deal with such issues as the provision currently impedes the country resilience and innovation index.
“There is an urgent need for the government to drive incentives for companies operating in Nigeria to make donations to the nonprofit sector and such donations are to be deducted from the company’s tax liability as stipulated by the Company Income Tax Regulation.”
They also noted that though CSOs are exempted from paying Company Income Tax (CIT), where they do not engage in any trade or business, they are however mandated to file CIT returns, Value Added Tax (VAT) returns and Withholding Tax (WHT) returns where taxes of corporate service providers have been withheld, whether or not they access grants or carry out projects.
Speaking at a press conference during the programme, the programmes manager, Global Rights, Edosa Oviawe noted the availability of over a dozen legislation and policies currently guiding the activities of the not-for-profit sector.
He, however, said that at least five unsuccessful attempts were made within the past decade by different regulatory agencies, including the National Assembly, to introduce new legislation and policies to further regulate CSO operations without recourse to extant legal provisions.
