Monday, January 10, 2011

Progresss of National Consultation Workshop on NGOs Law, Jan 10, 2011

On January 10, 2011,  the invitees  NGOs were attending discussing NGO law which was organized by Ministry of Interior (MoI) at Cambodiana Hotel. There were more than 200 national and internal NGOs representatives attending this workshop. During the opening workshop, Sar Kheng, Minister of MoI said that MoI need a law that accept all the parties so MoI would like all the participants provided input into the draft law.

The secretary of state of MoI, H.E Nut Sa An did presentation about draft NGO law and he mentioned that this law does not cover community based organization (CBO) but he also raised that CBO might be required to register at commune council level. However, he wanted all NGOs’ concern shall fight the right point in order to improve the quality of law. He also said that based on suggestion from some NGOs, this law might be extended time to discuss if the top leaders of MoI and Ministry of Foreign Affairs decide on this matter. He also cited that sometimes ministries leader don’t need any more consultation because today, it’s enough information to input the draft.  

After the ministry representative talked, it was divided four groups (from group 1 to 3 are local NGOs and fourth group for international NGO). All the groups have two activists of MoI official representatives as moderators and lead the meeting. All NGOs tried volunteer to lead meeting and reporting but except group 3, the government official nominated its activist to do report and presentation.  The group 3 was not obtained the fruitful of discussing.

There was two hours for discussing the whole content of draft law. During the discussing, the NGOs that pro- government tried to delay the times and provide nonsense comment on it but NGOs tried to change the situation. It was provided comment related to article 3 (scope of law should not be included CBO), article 6 (it suggested to change the whole content from mandatory to volunteer Registration) and other articles. All the comments were accepted by representative of ministry and the representative of MoI said that they would take all ideas to put in agenda of ministerial meeting to decide it. The times so limited for all NGOs to detail discussing therefore all NGOs request MoI to do more consultations. At this moment, we don’t know about MoI position but some NGOs feel that today is a last day for consultation.  

Tomorrow, all NGOs will issue their statement about the process of consultation today.

We will update for your information about this matter.

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