New non-profit organisation regulations were issued on 11 May 2023. The regulations prescribe:
- the meaning of ‘fiscal sponsorship’ is an agreement between a registered NPO and an unregistered NPO in terms of which the registered NPO provides fiduciary oversight, financial management, and administrative or operational services to support the capacity of the unregistered NPO
- operational measures for the Directorate to maintain a register of persons disqualified to act as office-bearers
- information NPOs have to provide about office-bearers, control structure, administration, and operations of registered NPOs, and access thereto and the form of sanctions.
Provisions from the GLA Act
The General Laws (Anti-money Laundering and Combatting Terrorism Financing) Amendment Act will, from 1 April 2023, set out grounds for disqualification from being an office-bearer of a registered nonprofit organisation, including, amongst others, being convicted under the Tax Administration Act (to be considered with potentially relevant tax laws such as section 18A(7) of the Income Tax Act); being convicted under the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (for example, section 29 reporting suspicious and unusual transactions); or being convicted under Chapter 2 of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act.
The GLA Act will also require that an NPO be registered if:
- it makes donations to individuals or organisations outside the Republic’s borders
- provides humanitarian, charitable, religious, educational, or cultural services outside the Republic’s borders, and
- proposes limited refusal of registration grounds.
The GLA Act also requires prescribed information about the office-bearers, control structure, governance, management, administration, and operations of registered nonprofit organisations.
You can download the new regulations here.
