Monrovia, Liberia - The Government of Liberia through the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning on Wednesday held a day-long consultative meeting with sector ministries, agencies and commissions (MACs) on Non-Governmental Organizations or NGOs sectorial clearance.
Representing Finance and Development Planning Minister Hon. Boima S. Kamara at the consultative forum, the Deputy Minister for Budget and Development Planning, Hon. Tanneh G. Brunson thanked all participating Ministries, Agencies and Commissions (MACs) for the level of efforts shown to form part of the meeting.
Hon. Brunson disclosed that the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning through the Department of Economic Management developed and revised the Aid and NGOs Policy guidelines, and procedural manual in 2022, a one stop shop NGO online registration and accreditation system.
Hon. Brunson noted that it was developed and launched on August 18, 2022 to enhance the accreditation and registration process of NGOs operating in the country.
However, prior to the launch of the platform, NGOs registration and accreditation were done through a manual process which had several challenges including long bureaucracies, loss of documents, too much paper trail taking two weeks’ process to complete.
“ The NGO registration and accreditation were done through a manual process that had several challenges including long bureaucracies, loss of documents and too much paper trail taking two weeks’ process to complete “, she added.
According to her, the development of the new platform was completed to remove the bottlenecks associated with the manual process to obtain sectorial clearance from sector ministries, agencies and commissions MACs) with accreditation from the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning.
She added that both parties had an engagement meeting with partners from the civil society organizations, National NGOs and international NGOs operating in Liberia to address major concerns raised by all partners including issue of discrepancy in fees for sector clearance across government and high fees charged at various entities.
The consultative meeting was attended by the Deputy Minister for Budget and Development Planning, Hon. Tanneh G. Brunson, Deputy Minister for Economic Management, Hon. Dehpue Zuo, Assistant Minister for External Resource and Debt Management, Hon. Alice Williams, officials from Ministries, Agencies, Commissions (MACs) and staff from the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning.