[UgaBYTES] No good news abour registration process of BCTN : Imet the Director General this morning !

Fri Jun 6 17:17:18 GMT 2008

Thanks Jaya for your support !
Today, we couldn't meet the Adviser unfortunately !
He was attending meetings. When we succeeded to get him on his moble
phone, he told us to come the week after next week. This because he has to
travel in a remote district during the hole next week.
So, we will have to wait.
For the law on Non profit organisations here, it has many simularities to
yours. But there is no such follow up from authorities here.
When I meet the Advicer, I will emphasize on the fact community
telecenters need the support from the community in order to survive. I
have worked in a non profit organization dedicated to supporting people
living with HIV/AIDS here. And in order to recieve the drugs, the
organisation members were to pay something ( so low fees compared to the
real price of the drug).
In addition, those non profit organizations  undertake incomes generating
activities !
In our case, the problem came from the text in our workplan, when we tried
to explain what is a telecentre ( using the definition from wikipedia).
After that, we added a short text describing the services provided by a
telecentre. The Director General said that it looks like commercial
activities if the users are to pay.
Maybe, we will be told to modify the text of our work plan, and some
articles in the constitution ! In that case, we will go back to the
Minitry of Justice before coming again to the Ministry of Interior.

Wait and see !

> Dear Jean Paul,
>
> Michael has raised a very important point about defining what a
> not-for-profit is.
>
> It is important to note that in India, when an organisation registers as a
> Society (registered under the Societies Registration Act - a legacy of the
> British Colonial Laws), the assumption is that none of the founding
> members
> or members of the "Society" will "profit" from the activities. This has
> been
> further clearly defined by the Income Tax authorities as to what this
> would
> mean. If the incomes of the "Society" is an amount X, the organisation
> must
> utilise at least 75% of the proceeds for exactly the same purposes for
> which
> the incomes were generated, and only permits a carry forward of 25% to the
> next financial year, thus ensuring that no substantial surpluses are
> created. There are special tax exemptions for the donors (individual or
> organisations contributing to the incomes) as well as for the "Society"
> for
> which specific applications are made.
>
> Any incomes generated from services/ products/ goods as a part of the
> organisational livelihoods promotion activities are also treated as
> incomes
> and have to be utilised for the sole purposes of furthering the objectives
> of the "Society". This again is with the idea that people/ individuals do
> not earn profit, and also not take advantage of the tax breaks that are
> given.
>
> Another point to note is that many schools, colleges and educational/
> capacity building institutions are registered as "Society" under the above
> act, and are responsible to fulfill all the regulations covered under the
> Societies Registration Act.
>
> Please also note that in India, you can also register philanthropic
> organisations under the Trust Act or Non-profit Company (under the Section
> 25 of the Companies Registration Act). Thus there are different routes
> that
> may be available.
>
> Please explore if there are any other options that are also available in
> your country. Usually, Chartered Accountants of existing and respected
> large
> civil society organisations can provide technical assistance and
> clarifications.
>
> Hope this is helpful.
>
> Jaya
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Gurstein" <gurstein at gmail.com>
> To: <ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org>
> Cc: "Jim Sayre" <jsayre at clasbc.net>; "'Peter Royce'" <proyce at vcn.bc.ca>
> Sent: Friday, June 06, 2008 1:51 AM
> Subject: Re: [UgaBYTES] No good news abour registration process of BCTN :
> Imet the Director General this morning !
>
>
>
> Hi Jean Paul,
>
> I'm not sure if it will be of any assistance but the Vancouver (Canada)
> Community Network (VCN) (where I'm on the Board) ran into the same problem
> about 10 years ago and won a quite famous court case which determined that
> VCN was in fact a not-for-profit even though it did charge for some of its
> services.
>
> I'll copy this to the current VCN President Jim Sayre (a lawyer) and Peter
> Royce (who was VCN co-ordinator at the time) if you have an interest in
> getting more information on what happened in the Canadian circumstance.
>
> Best,
>
> MG
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org
> [mailto:ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org] On Behalf Of NKURUNZIZA Jean
> Paul
> Sent: June 5, 2008 4:31 AM
> To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
> Subject: [UgaBYTES] No good news abour registration process of BCTN : I
> met
> the Director General this morning !
> Importance: High
>
> Hello,
>
> I met this morning the Director General of the Ministry of Interior today
> morning. The bad thing is that the Advicer in charge of our file had
> attached a very little notice on our file saying that : BCTN is not a non
> profit organization. He wrote this because in our text, we described some
> services generally offered by telecenter ( Internet access, photocopy,
> Library, community radio, ...). As he saw that offered services are not
> free, them he argued that BCTN is not non profit. But I explained that the
> major role of the network is essentially to support telecenter initiatives
> by capacity buildings, lobbying and content for Development, etc... as it
> is
> clearly stated in our objectives. I also explained that low fees are paid
> to
> telecenters for their sustainability issues. At the end, he told me to
> contact back the Advicer and explain him. This because the Director
> General
> can't go against technical advices from his colleague. So, we scheduled
> the
> meeting with the Advicer tomorrow as he was not in his office today. It
> looks like that we will be obliged to modify our  constitution text and
> then
> begin all the registration process again if the Advicer doesn't
> understand.
>
> --
> NKURUNZIZA Jean Paul
> Président du Réseau des Télécentres Communautaires  du Burundi Secrétaire
> Général de BYTC B.P 7031 BUJUMBURA BURUNDI
> Tél: 00257 22 21 96 45
> Tél Mob : 00257 76 60 49 46/00257 79 981 459
> Fax : 00257 212485 ou 00257 222147
> E.Mail : nkurunziza at bytc.bi ou
>          jnkurunz at hotmail.com
> Site web : http://www.bytc.bi
>
>
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-- 
NKURUNZIZA Jean Paul
Président du Réseau des Télécentres Communautaires  du Burundi
Secrétaire Général de BYTC
B.P 7031 BUJUMBURA BURUNDI
Tél: 00257 22 21 96 45
Tél Mob : 00257 76 60 49 46/00257 79 981 459
Fax : 00257 212485 ou 00257 222147
E.Mail : nkurunziza at bytc.bi ou
         jnkurunz at hotmail.com
Site web : http://www.bytc.bi