Johannesburg - The Proudly South African organisation has been disowned by its sponsor, the trade and industry department, Business Day reported on Thursday.
It was struggling to survive without government funding or an office in a department of state, parliament heard on Wednesday.
Proudly South African has gone from crisis to crisis in its six years of existence. It was created as a vehicle to encourage South Africans to buy locally produced goods rather than imported ones.
The idea was to stimulate local production and preserve jobs in struggling industrial sectors such as clothing and textiles.
Proudly South African chief executive Manana Moroka asked MPs to help find the organisation a government office.
This was after a departmental letter said Proudly South African was neither an agency nor a non-governmental organisation in the department.
Proudly South African was recently told that it was wrongly classified and that it was a Section 21 not-for-profit company.
"For six or seven years we have been reporting directly to the department but we were recently informed that we are not part of them.
"We are lost now and would like Cabinet to allocate us to another department," Moroka said.
Inkatha Freedom Party MP Eugenia Chang and African National Congress MP Danny Oliphant agreed that there should be state funding for Proudly South African.
Oliphant said that some government departments did not use the logo, indicating that they were not members.
He suggested that if all government departments were members and paid a fee of R500 000 a year, this could solve the organisation's funding woes.
So it seems that this gvt is also seeing the light.
OK!