New Sasco secretary-general ready to take over

AFTER drumming up enough support and convincing delegates at the South African Student Congress (Sasco) conference in Johannesburg, Gqeberha-born Nosiphiwo Ngqunge was elected the secretary-general.

Ngqunge, 26, takes on the role after at least 500 delegates supported her election.

She has vowed to use her new role to ensure students from poorer schools can access universities come January.

The human resources management and business administration graduate, who first joined Sasco in 2016, won the election unopposed.

She was tipped to be going up against Alungile Kamtshe.

Ngqunge also wants to use the platforms available to her to tackle gender-based violence and crime among students at South African universities and technical vocational education and training colleges.

Gaining ground in universities and colleges that had previously been lost to other political organisations for students was also high on her agenda.

“Our plan is always to start by helping students access institutions of higher learning through admissions, financial aid, and placement in proper student housing.”

Ngqunge said her team would then tackle issues second-year students and post-graduate students face.

“It’s through championing issues that students face that we win SRC elections,” she said.

Ngqunge said the team also had plans to challenge online elections at universities as they believed university management tampered with results.

This comes after allegations that Nelson Mandela University’s student representative council elections were hosted on a server located outside South Africa, potentially violating new data protection legislation.

The DA won the elections. At the time, then-Sasco president Bamanye Matiwane said they would challenge the matter in court.

NOSIPHIWO Ngqunge