Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hope it’s not news to the Members of this House that our NWT non-governmental organizations are invaluable to us. Since starting my job here three years ago, Mr. Speaker, I’ve advocated for the better treatment of NGOs, organizations who very capably provide services to our residents on behalf of this government.
Today I want to highlight a recent but alarming change in the practice of our government in regard to the relationship to NGOs.
Since the start of this fiscal year there’s been a move by the GNWT away from multi-year contracts with NGOs to one-year contracts. The strain that those single-year contracts put on the administrative staff of our NGOs is enormous. Yet, year after year it seems we require them to apply for the program funding on an annual basis, and when contracts are not signed on time, we ask them to continue to provide services without any guarantee of payment because there’s no contract in place. It creates cash flow problems for the organization and it creates uncertainty for NGO staff and the organization’s staffing requirements.
About a year ago I sensed some willingness on the part of the government to change this situation. I sensed some improvement in the relationships with NGOs: better communications, faster executing of contracts, and an emerging standard of multi-year contracts. But we seem to have gone backwards since then, since April, to have reverted to older, poorer practices. Why can’t we realize and act on the need to be efficient with our partners to make life easier for our NGOs, not harder? Does the signing of GNWT NGO contracts get bogged down because our departments lack the expertise, or are bureaucrats just too busy with other work and this part of their job is not as important to them?
This situation must change, Mr. Speaker, and for the better. We cannot continually put these organizations and their staff in jeopardy.
I applauded the creation last year of a manual for GNWT program managers who deal with NGOs. I was optimistic we’d see some progress towards fairness in financing and towards stabilization of our NGOs. Now I’m not so sure how much progress there’s been. We need to put the elements of that manual into practice, Mr. Speaker, and we need to create financial efficiencies around our contracts with NGOs.
I will have some questions for the Premier at the appropriate time. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
