Max Matavire speaks to a number of experts to find out the current situation when it comes the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco)
Formed in 1992 with clearly defined mandates of advocating for the rights and interests of citizens, particularly in townships and rural areas, and ensuring that government is accountable to its citizens and delivers services, the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) has fallen short and long lost direction, relevance, and touch with the constituency it is suppose to serve.
According to the Parliamentary Monitoring Group, Sanco’s work includes promoting local economic development, advocating for government reforms, and ensuring that all other civic organisations like ratepayers associations and community forums have a role and a voice in policy decisions.
This has not happened, and slowly but surely, the once vibrant civic organisation has become a shadow of its former self, driven into oblivion by its close proximity to the ANC and becoming the former liberation movement’s appendage. With other important roles such as co-ordinating existing civic organisations involved in anti-apartheid struggle, Sanco is also tasked with promoting a united, democratic, and equitable South Africa, achieve national unity, and advocate for democratic transformation, socio-economic development, and peace.
All of the governance experts, academics, former Sanco leaders, and political commentators BBQ spoke to, lamented the situation the organisation currently finds itself in, with the exception of Sanco itself, which thought it was still on track. Nelson Mandela University Professor Bheki Mngomezulu, in an interview with BBQ, says since Sanco’s formation in 1992, it was doing a “great job” of coordinating the activities of other civic organisations. Mngomezulu adds that Sanco even assisted in the ushering of South Africa to the new political dispensation.
“However, lately it has become redundant and somewhat irrelevant due to several reasons. Some associate it with the ANC, Cosatu, and the SACP. Intriguingly, even its alliance partners no longer accord it the same status it had in the past. As the ANC loses its charm, so does Sanco,” says Mngomezulu.
He continues: “Secondly, many civic organisations have surfaced to contest the same space. Thirdly, South Africans generally align themselves with political parties and not civic organisations. Fourthly, funding has crippled the organisation, and, lastly, the calibre of the current leadership is not as strong as that of yesteryear.”
However, Sanco does not agree. Its deputy national president Chris Malematja claims that “with a national membership of four million, Sanco is still very relevant”. “When it was not fashionable for liberation movements to wage the liberation struggle, they depended on civic organisations like Sanco to keep the home fires burning. We brought the apartheid juggernaut to it’s knees by participating in numerous various campaigns,” says Malematja in a telephone interview.
“We are still with the people. Now our struggle has changed from the time of the liberation struggle. We are now focusing on the provision of services to communities—bread and butter issues, transformation, livelihoods, and the living conditions of the masses. We remain relevant and when the State is not servicing the people we intervene. It’s only that the media does pay much attention to our work.”
Malematja explains that Sanco was not part of the Tripartite Alliance, but was in an alliance with the ANC. “There’s no big brother kind of arrangement there, we each play different roles and compliment one another. Yes, the ANC is the leader. As Sanco we mobilise society in general—churches, NGOs, tradition leaders, sangomas, and the like. We were the first to oppose the VAT which Treasury wanted to impose in this year’s budget just like we did in the 1980’s together with the SACP,” said Malematja, adding that in all communities where there’s Sanco, crime was low. However, there is no proof to this declaration as crime is rampant in every community in the country.
He says Sanco membership was open to every South African citizen. “We currently are sitting at four million members throughout the country. If people join Sanco all public services in the country will improve. Sanco is the future,” says Malematja.
However, hard talking governance expert Sandile Swana sees it differently. “The relevance of Sanco is highly questionable. Just look at what’s happening in Alexandra township and Soweto where service delivery is non existent and illegal settlements are mushrooming. Where is Sanco. This has been going on for about 30 years and Sanco is nowhere to be found. For all practical purposes it has just become a filler, an appendage to the ANC,” says Swana.
“We do not even know their support base and how big it is. Sanco will be eclipsing as the ANC declines. I don’t see Sanco helping anyone. It aligns itself with the dominant ANC faction of that time. The proliferation of numerous other civic organisations playing the same role some even better, has exacerbated the demise of Sanco. Look what is happening in Makhanda where there are strong, vibrant civic organisations which fight for citizens rights, constantly dragging authorities to court and winning. They don’t even know Sanco exists,” Swana adds.
Professor Sipho Seepa of the University of KZN describes Sanco as a “stepchild of the ANC”. “For years now, Sanco has failed to project itself as a force to be reckoned with. Its ideological proximity to the ANC has weakened it to hold the ANC-led alliance to account. The same can be said of Cosatu, and until recently the SACP. Like the rest, Sanco found itself unable to distinguish itself as having a completely distinct mandate that is different from that of the ANC activists operating at a municipal level. Many Sanco leaders, like Cosatu and the SACP, found themselves easily swallowed by the ANC as this is made even easier by the fact that they all tend to hold dual memberships of the ANC,” says Seepe.
Seepe says this self-inflicted emasculation has led to a vacuum which has now been filled by many single issue organisations, and once this space has been occupied it would be difficult for Sanco or any organisation to reclaim that space.
Former general secretary of Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisation (Pebco) Vuyisile Maki, says there’s no need for Sanco as a national organisation as its mandate during its formation is to deal specifically with local issues affecting a particular community. Maki argues that each community has its own issues perculiar to it which are completely different from the other communities.
“So why go national with Sanco instead of letting the various local communities form their own organisations on the ground which know the existing problems because they live within that community?
“This thing of forming a national Sanco organisation is just a gimmick to jump on the gravy train. People saw that there’s an opportunity to eat and they decided to go national so that they would be deployed to Parliament and local government. This is evidenced by the current leadership squabbles in Sanco—fighting for power—it’s time to eat,” says Maki with a cynical chuckle.
Max Matavire is a Freelance Journalist.
- Sanco’s work includes promoting local economic development, advocating for government reforms, and ensuring that all other civic organisations have a role and a voice in policy decisions
