Francisco Queiroz, who was speaking to the press at the end of the 1st ordinary meeting of the Inter-ministerial Commission for State Reform, said that a proposal for a presidential decree was approved, which aims to change the regime for granting public benefit status to civil society organizations that require it.
According to the minister, there are many organizations and the total amount they consume from the General State Budget per year is about 4600 million kwanzas, "which means that the financial impact of these public utility organizations on the budget is considerable."
"But the social impact does not have the same proportion in terms of work, production and results of public utility, so the Government decided to review this regime and in fact, until now the status of public utility was attributed more or less casuistically, without great criteria," he stressed.
The governor stressed that the future decree will prohibit the attribution of the status of public utility right after the constitution of the society, that is, the organization must be constituted first, work for three years and at the end of this time an evaluation will be made to analyze if it is possible, if it meets the conditions, to receive the status of public utility.
"On the other hand, this status should not be attributed to the association in general, it should be attributed to programs, they should be programs that this association presents or projects, and it is these programs or projects that are evaluated in terms of knowing if, in fact, they have public utility or not, if they have public utility, then yes the State helps and attributes the status of public utility and helps financially", he explained.
According to the minister, different from the current model, the public utility status is no longer permanent and will be attributed every three years.
"If it has earned the status of public utility, after three years it is evaluated and if it is considered that it deserves to continue with this status and with the help of the Government, then the status is renewed," he added.
The organizations that benefit from this status from now on are obliged to present an annual report and accounts to the Ministry of Finance, so that it can be evaluated if the results were achieved, in function of the tax revenues that were attributed to them.
Another type of inspection, informed Francisco Queiroz, will be made by the Court of Auditors, which will evaluate if the money is being used according to the purposes for which it was destined.
For the already existing organizations, a revision of this statute is foreseen, according to the future decree, giving them a period of 60 days to undergo an evaluation, in order to "see if they are effectively of public interest or not.
"For this they must present the accounts report for the last two years and they must also present their fiscal situation, fiscal regularity, and they must present projects and programs that are in accordance with the requirements that the new presidential decree refers to," said the minister.
In turn, the ministries that accompany these organizations that already exist at the moment must present, within 30 days, maps indicating each of the civil society organizations that have the status of public utility, the amount they annually receive, the impact that these organizations have on society, and other useful information, so that the proper evaluation body can see whether or not they should continue with the status.
"The current organizations with the status have 60 days to regularize their situation, to be evaluated and to see if they should continue or cease to be," he indicated.
Francisco Queiroz said that the objective is to "organize and in some way bring order to the situation that exists right now.
"There is a lot of money from the State going out through the public utility status, but the results of this are not very visible, it is necessary to correct this situation, which is what happened with the presidential decree that has just been approved," he assured.
With the current organizations that after the evaluation do not meet the conditions to benefit from this status, they will be considered normal organizations, warned the minister.
The Minister of Justice and Human Rights reiterated that the State spends at least 4600 million kwanzas per year, only in relation to the 24 of the 41 existing organizations.
"We only managed to have data from 24, meaning that the other 17 we have not yet managed to obtain the data, that will be, surely, for above 6000 million kwanzas every year that the State spends with these organizations without the corresponding return of the number of public utility benefits", he underlined.
