Several foundations say that the first national convention has been rushed.
The Thabo Mbeki Foundation has raised renewed concerns about the funding model for the National Dialogue.
This comes after the organising committee for the first convention taking place this week revealed that some delegates will be booked into five hotels in Pretoria.
According to the organisers, provision has been made for 1 000 delegates. On Monday, 755 people had been invited from more than 30 sectors and over 200 organisations.
Bongani Kupe, a special projects manager at the Thabo Mbeki Foundation, told The Citizen that one of the reasons the legacy foundations had pulled out is because there was no clarity on where delegates would be accommodated.
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“This is why we said, can we postpone this so that we can put everything in context, so that we can lower the cost of this.
“Some of the sectors, I am sure they would have been able to say we will come, but we will foot our own bill. Those that would have said they cannot afford; we could have found reasonable accommodation for them.
“The intention is not to make this a commercial project, the intention should be a substantive project that will change the trajectory of South Africa,” he said.
Lack of financial transparency
Kupe said the issue of financial transparency is of importance if the dialogue is a citizen led process.
“Initially, we had said this would cost between R76 million and R700 million; there was no figure that had been finalised. We then said to the government, we need to discuss this. They never came back to us in time to say this is what we think we can contribute. They just took the project because they then said they have the resources, they can do this on their own,” he said.
Kupe said the foundations did not want to risk their names in a venture that was veiled in secrecy or the lack of transparency.
“Our fear is that you, as reporters, will come to us and ask us how much this cost, and we will say we do not know. Then it will be clear that this is not citizen led,” he said.
Kupe said the foundations had decided not to attend the first convention at the end of this week.
“We do not like the fact that the government has taken over instead of the process being citizen-led. We have been planning this thing for some time without the government. We do not want this to be an imbizo where people come together, complain, and then disperse.
“We want this to kick-start a process that is nation-building, that is why we wanted every sector to be engaged even before the first national convention,” he said.
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Where will the money come from?
According to a statement from the Presidency on Monday the costs of the first convention are being funded from the existing budgets of Nedlac and the Presidency for secretariat support, communications and logistics.
“The provisions in the Appropriation Act and the PFMA will be used to reimburse the Department of Employment and Labour and Nedlac in the adjustments budget later this year,” said the Presidency.
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