The following is a press statement from the Coordinating Assembly of Non-Governmental Organisations (CANGO) in response to a statement issued by the Swaziland National Union of Students (SNUS), published on this website yesterday (1 February 2010).
Regarding the press statement issued by Mr. Maxwell Dlamini-SNUS Organising Secretary- whereby he states that CANGO Director refused to pay for transport for students yet had made undertaking to do so and latter stated that "they will not support their (students) struggles because ‘we (students) want to overthrow the state’.
The CANGO Director as you will note on the paragraph that follows never made an undertaking to support this event. We would like to express our dismay at this unfortunate statement which is malicious and is meant to tarnish the image of CANGO.
The truth is that the CANGO Director met Mr. Bheki Khumalo just before the closure of offices on Friday the 29th January 2010. Mr Khumalo informed the Director that SNUS forwarded a request, which was received by the office on the 26th January 2010 and SNUS was appealing for response as the mass meeting for students was scheduled to be held on Saturday the 30th January 2010.
The Director informed Mr. Khumalo that that CANGO has no resources to support SNUS meeting, as all activities and budgets thereof for CANGO's financial year (March 31st 2010) were finalized. Mr. Khumalo promised to convey the message to the SNUS leadership and requested teh Director to communicate teh CANGO's position in writing.
We would like to be understood that we are an umbrella body for NGOs in Swaziland. We, like any other NGO, rely on external funding to pursue our work. Donors in this regard provide resources according to specific projects. It therefore follows that it is not possible to divert funds to activities not budgeted and agreed with our funders.
We call upon SNUS leadership to rebut this statement as it is devoid of any truth.
Emmanuel Ndlangamandla
CANGO Director
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