The NOW representatives are all volunteers that are actively involved on various forums, clubs and associations in the 4x4 industry, other than serving on NOW.  Time is a limiting factor and not freely available.  The Minister realised that clearly in his letter to NOW when he suggested that we need to appoint a Service Provider to finalise the Strategy towards self-regulation, rather than trying to do it ourselves.  Be assured that the service provider will be guided by the current Business Plan (More on the Business Plan later).  He even went as far as to conditionally offer R500k towards this appointment.  The condition for the release the once-off financial assistance was that NOW had to submit a Business Plan to the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) for approval.

NOW had a slow start initially, as we got caught in a peculiar situation between possible service providers and DEAT.  On the one hand we were asked by DEAT to deliver a Business Plan in order to be considered for the once-off financial assistance.  On the other hand service providers asked for financial committment before they would commence any work on the Business Plan.  As you know, NOW consists of mainly volunteers and has no budget of its own.  This has resulted inter alia in allocating own time, as volunteers and part time enthusiasts, to get as close as possible to a Business Plan that would meet DEAT’s approval and would secure DEAT’s financial assistance.  This process has caused severe delays on set time scales, but we believe we have now recovered and are back on track.

We are, however, excited about the progress that NOW has achieved to date.

1. We have submitted the Business Plan to DEAT that sets out the targets to be achieved by NOW.  The Business Plan that NOW submitted to DEAT will be posted on this website.  We are considering the Business Plan as a living document and it will be updated as we progress, as we do not see the Business Plan as a cast in iron document.
2. We have registered NOW as a section 21 Company and submitted the detail therof to DEAT for the transfer of funds.
3. The once-off financial assistance of R500k has been transferred to NOW.  One of the conditions of this financial assistance is that it will, and I quote from the Minister’s letter “It should be noted that financial assistance will only be considered for the appointment of service providers employed to do work”.  You can therefore be assured that it will not be used for admin, travel, entertainment, etc, but only for the purpose it was intended for.
4. A Strategic Planning session (Strat Plan) between NOW, DEAT and possible service providers has been scheduled for 3 and 4 May 2007.  We are currently preparing for this session by drafting relevant individual 1 pager documents that will serve as the basis for the discussion of each of the individual objectives as set out at the NOW Workshop held at George in October 2005.  This documentation is a direct outcome of the Business Plan, and is being used as such.  As soon as we are finished with the 1 pagers, it will be posted on this website.
5. The strategic planning session will be followed by the appointment of a service provider, who will assist us in finalising the Strategy towards self-regulation.
   

There are other specific issues, inter alia:

1. Update and progress on the unit standards.
2. Driver competence as a replacement for Permitting of vehicles and licencing of drivers.
3. The various representative industries’ progress reports.
4. Etc.

that will follow soon.

Even though we had a slow start and lacked appropriate communication from our side, be assured of our best endeavours to stay on track and to keep you updated in the future.

Jakob Jordaan