The Western Cape Department of Social Development has called on all Non-profit organisations to ensure they adhere to the requirements of the NPO Act or be deregistered.

This comes as the National Government has embarked on a process to weed out all non-compliant NPOs.

It forms part of efforts to remove South Africa from the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) grey list, which has identified the risks of terror financing and money laundering by NPOs.

MEC Jaco Londt says they want to assist legitimate organisations, through the department’s Institutional Capacity Building unit.

In 2023/24, the unit conducted 33 Mobile Help Desk drives across the province, which assisted 422 NPOs with registration, compliance, and related concerns. A further 1 593 NPOs were assisted by the NPO Helpdesk walk-in service, situated in the Cape Town city centre.

The unit conducted 13 Mobile Help Desk drives between April and September 2024.

“As DSD management, we have also been working on a model to help better support organisations, beyond the funding we provide as government, to create a ‘double safety net’. More on this will be communicated in the coming months.”

“We are further improving the Department’s Monitoring and Evaluation systems to help guide potential investors who want to support NPOs or NGOs, so they have surety that their money will be going to trusted and compliant organisations that serve vulnerable residents well.”

There are 30 914 registered NPOs in the Western Cape, operating across multiple sectors including social services, health, environment, law and advocacy, and education and research. Of these, 17 364 are non-compliant. As of October 2024, there are 295 052 registered NPOs nationally, of which, 167 103 are non-compliant.

According to the National Department of Social Development, the biggest contributors to non-compliance are the failure to submit annual reports, and organisations not adhering to the provisions of their own founding documents.

The South African government will need to report back to the FATF in 2026 on the progress it has made to deregister non-compliant NPOs.

This process is part of an Action Plan with 22 Action items linked to the eight strategic deficiencies identified in the country’s anti-money laundering and combating of financial terrorism regime.

The risk assessment identified some threats that NPOs can be exposed to relating to terror financing, such as:

• Organisations raising funds or other support for foreign terrorist groups;
• Facilitating foreign travel for terrorist causes, amongst others, and
• Using the Internet and online media for fundraising, recruitment and propaganda

South Africa is required to address all 22 items to exit the grey-listing status.

Western Cape NPOS can access information on how to become compliant by visiting the DSD’s website.

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