By Zweli Martin Dlamini

Emmanuel Ndlangamandla, the outgoing Executive Director of the Co-ordinating Assembly of Non-Governmental Organizations(CANGO) is retiring with his integrity.

CANGO once managed a grant worth five hundred thousand Rands (R500,000.00)on behalf of this publication and I must say, donors including us were impressed with his leadership and commitment to accountability.

In our first grant, CANGO helped us to understand how to handle donor funds, we completed a project and a remaining eighty thousand Rands (R80,000.00) was sent back to the donors by CANGO as unused funds.

Personally, I learnt a lot from Emmanuel Ndlangamandla, reading about him from newspapers was far different when I started interacting with him directly. 

Ndlangamandla subscribes to the principles of transparency and accountability and we were able to qualify for future grants as a publication because CANGO assisted us to understand how to handle donor funds.

Now, Emmanuel Ndlangamandla is retiring, we hope the incoming Director Thembinkosi Dlamini will uphold professionalism and be accountable.

I hardly write articles praising corporate leaders but professional conduct must be acknowledged to inspire others in the corporate sector or the civil society.

As mentioned, personally, I learnt a lot and I always try to be like Director Emmanuel Ndlangamandla when it comes to the accountability of funds even in the media company that I founded. 

We wish Ndlangamandla well in his future endeavors and we hope his leadership skills will benefit the country in the coming new democratic Government. 

With this article, I am not suggesting that Ndlangamandla is perfect, as the media where he has done wrong, we will criticize him objectively and constructively.

I am just sharing my personal experience in working with the outgoing CANGO Executive Director and I hope this will inspire others.