Erring Societies in trouble

Wed, 14 Feb 2018 10:15:18 +0000

By PRINCE CHIBAWAH

GOVERNMENT says it is alarmed by the increased number of societies undermining the laws of Zambia.

Zambia has a total of 45, 000 registered societies of which about 55 are political parties.

Addressing a media briefing held at his office yesterday, Home Affairs Minister, Stephen Kampyongo warned that all political parties, churches and other societies that were breaching provisions of the Societies Act would be deregistered.

“Among the obligations for registered societies is the requirement to submit annual returns which must be done not later than 31st March each year,” Mr. Kampyongo said.

He said his office was empowered by law to deregister the erring societies.

He said the process was expected to weed out dormant societies and those operating illegally.

“The process is not targeting particular political parties or churches but government is ready to act on any erring society. It does not matter how big the political party is, for instance, we will deal with them if they continue to undermine the law,” he said.

Although Mr Kampyongo did not give the exact number of erring societies, he however said there was a good number of them breaching the law.

He said the process was also part of the digitalisation exercise that his ministry had embarked on since last year.

“To reduce the number of erring societies and serve the public more effectively, the Registrar of Societies in 2017 embarked on the digitalisation of all the records of registered societies into an electronic system.

“To ensure that all the societies on the system are in compliance with annual returns submission, I wish to request all societies that have defaulted in their remittance of returns to report to the office of the Registrar of Societies or nearest national registration office in your district and pay K100 for each year you have defaulted to submit your annual returns,” Mr Kampyongo said.

He said the amnesty would run from February 13 to April 30, 2018.

He said failure to comply would attract penalty charges of K6, 000.

“I wish to urge all clubs, religious groups, community service societies, associations, political parties and pressure groups to come forward and normalise their registration status.

“I further urge all registered branches of religious groups and political parties to take advantage of this waiver to normalise their status,” the minister said.