Lynda Gledhill
Preliminary results of a financial audit of South Africa’s largest literacy NGO – the National Literacy Co-operation (NLC) – closed the doors of the organisation last week amid allegations of mismanagement. The initial report, released to the Mail & Guardian this week, confirms a lack of proper record keeping and expenditures that were not project-related.
The chair of the board of trustees, Wendy Luhabe, told NLC employees “the future of the NLC is unresolved. However, it is clear that there is a definite lack of confidence in the NLC’s ability to carry out the obligations generally attached to donor funds.”
NLC employees who have been working since December without pay were told their services were terminated. Negotiations were still pending to see if they will be paid for time worked.
The allegations surfaced in December when the European Union, the NLC’s main donor, found discrepancies in a progress report the NLC handed it in the hope of securing its next portion of funds. The EU wanted an explanation for the more than R7-million which had apparently gone missing. They immediately suspended funding, pending the outcome of an audit.
The closure of the NLC is expected to have far-reaching repercussions for a host of literacy NGOs. More than 60 of the 200-odd NGOs that formed the NLC as a primary vehicle to address national literacy backlogs had already disappeared before the current crisis hit. Many more could follow in its wake.
While the NLC had existed since December on volunteer staff, member organisations who have greater capital costs, like textbooks, have been denied crucial funding. “We haven’t had anything since December. It’s a real problem. Some of the tutors come, others don’t. The students are so frustrated,” said Joyce Ngejane, who runs the Phumelela Literacy Organisation in Gauteng, which depended on the NLC for funds.
More than 15-million South Africans are functionally illiterate. They cannot read job application forms, bills or kettle instruction booklets. Hundreds of thousands of these people depend on NLC affiliates to help them overcome these obstacles.
Ngejane, like many of her peers at other NGOs, is approaching donors herself to see if she can get money directly to pay her tutors before her learners become discouraged. “If we just had a little, we’d be okay,” she said.
But sources close to the NLC suggest the problem is more complicated than just the alleged mismanagement. They point out that NLC president Enrico Fourie resigned when the allegations surfaced, but this did not pre-empt the organisation’s closure. They believe the EU will use the audit as a pretext to withdraw funding permanently. “But this is just an excuse,” said one.
The underlying issue, the sources say, is the declining commitment of donors to South Africa – and to literacy. This argument is echoed by the World University Service, another major conductor of donations to literacy NGOs facing a crunch amid recent “devastating” allegations that funds have been misappropriated.
World University Service director Mathokoza Mhlapo said: “There was a lot of commitment when we started going through the transition. But now one feels that other countries are saying there can’t be an ongoing transition – the country must start to take care of itself.”
Currently most literacy funding comes from overseas donors like the EU. These donors are becoming unwilling to commit more money without signs of government support. “Adult education has always been the least provided for, and the discoveries at the literacy NGOs just exacerbate the situation,” said Mhlapo, who predicted that her funds will be staying level or dropping until 1999, with no future commitment beyond that point secured. “Donors don’t want to commit beyond that period. They want to see what happens with the elections.”
While the government is beginning to strengthen its planning by producing three- year medium-term expenditure frameworks, NGOs dependent on donor funding cannot.
And some NGO workers predict the smallest organisations, often those closest to people in need in rural areas, will be the hardest hit. “It will only be the larger NGOs that end up surviving,” said one literacy NGO head. “They are the only ones that have enough clout to find their own money.”
This bleak scenario has some NGO workers demanding a new understanding from government about the severity of the country’s illiteracy problem. “People are going to have to provide the pressure. Children and parents are going to have to demand not only literacy, but skills. The state will take responsibility only when the education system is under tremendous pressure,” said one source close to the NLC.