On November 7, the regime of Daniel Ortega introduced a Special Law initiative in the National Assembly for the Change of Legal Regime of at least 29 Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs), under the argument that they carry out commercial activities and provision of financial services.
According to the initiative, these organizations mentioned in the document are regulated by the Law for the Promotion and Regulation of Microfinance, which has been in force since 2012. The proposal explains that in the financial and microfinance sphere there are entities that were created as civil associations without for profit, in accordance with the provisions of Law 147 (General Law on Non-Profit Legal Entities) that was approved on March 19, 1992, but whose activity corresponds to that of commercial entities.
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The new commercial companies will have 90 days to change their regime and another 90 days to transfer the assets of the non-profit organizations to the new commercial companies. He points out that the transfer and registration of assets must be carried out “under the principles with speed, publicity and immediacy.”
Among the NGOs that will be subject to this new imposition will be the Association for the Promotion of Development of Nicaragua (Afodenic), Jinotega Global Village Project Association (Pagjino), Martin Luther King Association, Association for Opportunity and Economic Development of Nicaragua (Asodenic), Center for the Promotion of Local Development and Overcoming Poverty (Ceprodel), Fund Association of the Nicaraguan Development Institute (Finde), Women’s Foundation and Community Economic Development.
The bill establishes that in the case of ProMujer and The Neo Foundation, because they are considered merely foreign, the Ministry of the Interior will cancel their legal status.
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«In the case of the Associations / Foundations called ProMujer and The Neo Foundation, due to their status as foreign legal entities, the General Directorate of Registration and Control of Non-Profit Organizations of the Ministry of the Interior will proceed to cancel the registration in the corresponding register”, refers to the initiative.
This new order was presented by the president of the Assembly, Gustavo Porras, justifying that this action is the next step to continue with the “process of ordering and purging non-profit Associations and Foundations” that are in the country and have largely annihilated by the regime.
All the canceled entities have been accused of violating Law 1040, Law for the Regulation of Foreign Agents; and Law 977, Law Against Money Laundering, the Financing of Terrorism and the Financing of the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
The Nicaraguan Human Rights Collective Never Again has denounced that “the purpose of these cancellations is to exercise absolute control and silence society; persecute those who think differently and establish a single thought, violating the human rights of the Nicaraguan people.
