PRESIDENT MBEKI DECLINES INVITATION TO ATTEND SO-CALLED “FIRST NATIONAL CONVENTION OF NATIONAL DIALOGUE” This is stated in a letter addressed to the Executive Director of NEDLAC Mr. Makhukhu Mampuru dated the 12th August 2025.

The assertion that the forthcoming meeting at UNISA is the “First (National)
Convention of the National Dialogue” is not correct.
The forthcoming 15/16 August meeting at UNISA is not the ‘First National
Convention of the National Dialogue.’
All public meetings of the National Dialogue, including its National
Conventions, would be convened by the Preparatory Task Team (PTT) of the
National Dialogue, which has been operational for the past 13 months.
The PTT has not convened the forthcoming 15/16 August 2025 meeting at
UNISA and has otherwise had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Dear Mr. Mampuru,
Re: The 15/16 August 2025 Meeting at UNISA.
We hereby acknowledge receipt of an unsigned document from people who
call themselves “The National Dialogue Team”, writing on behalf of a
“Convention Organising Committee of the National Dialogue”, as well as your
signed letter, both of which invite President Mbeki to attend the meeting
scheduled to take place at the UNISA Muckleneuk Campus on 15 & 16
August 2025.
This request has been received by President Mbeki, sadly, two days after the
expected response date stated in the letter dated the 10th August 2025, has
now been forwarded to us for advice and response.

PRESIDENT MBEKI WILL NOT ATTEND THE SAID MEETING

Concerning your request, we regret to advise you that he will not attend the
said meeting as requested. This is consistent with the decision of the other
Legacy Foundations, which is now a matter of public knowledge.
The reason for this is simple and straightforward.
The assertion that the forthcoming meeting at UNISA is the “First (National)
Convention of the National Dialogue” is not correct.
The forthcoming 15/16 August meeting at UNISA is not the ‘First National
Convention of the National Dialogue.’
All public meetings of the National Dialogue, including its National
Conventions, would be convened by the Preparatory Task Team (PTT) of the
National Dialogue, which has been operational for the past 13 months.
The PTT has not convened the forthcoming 15/16 August 2025 meeting at
UNISA and has otherwise had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

THERE IS NO STRUCTURE OF THE NATIONAL DIALOGUE PRORAMME CALLED THE “CONVENTION ORGANISING COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL DIALOGUE”

Further, there is no structure of the National Dialogue programme called
the ‘Convention Organising Committee of the National Dialogue,’ the
convenors of the forthcoming meeting at UNISA. Neither is there a National
Dialogue group called ‘The National Dialogue Team.’
It would help to identify the people who serve in these groups to
at least to establish how many of them, if any, have been involved in the
efforts to organise the National Dialogue during the last thirteen (13)
months or so.
In your letter, you identify yourself as “Head of the Secretariat of the
National Dialogue.” To put this matter more precisely, you are Head of the
Secretariat of the Preparatory Task Team of the National Dialogue.
To the best of our knowledge, the PTT never authorised you to issue
invitations to any meeting, and certainly never to the 15/16 August 2025
meeting!

We must also mention an important point about the planned delegations to
the future First National Convention of the National Dialogue.
As you know, the PTT has identified plus or minus thirty (30)
sectors/constituencies that will be invited to attend the First National
Convention. Each one of these, e.g., the women, will meet on its own to
select the specified number of allocated delegates, 100 for example, bearing
in mind the inalienable requirement to ensure that the delegation is truly
inclusive of the particular constituency.
Considering that the National Convention will therefore be truly inclusive and
representative of the people of South Africa, the PTT has proposed that the
First National Convention will make provision for simultaneous translation in
all the official languages!

With due respect to those who will attend the forthcoming meeting at
UNISA, these individuals will have no possibility whatsoever to claim to
represent any of the constituencies to which we have referred and will be
unable to engage meaningfully on the challenges facing our country.
It is exactly for this obvious reason that the meeting at UNISA cannot, as
you claim for some reason, “mark the formal kick-off of an inclusive, citizen
led process to chart a shared vision for South Africa’s future.”

MISLEADING TO DESCRIBE THE 15/16 MEETING AT UNISA AS THE ‘FIRST NATIONAL CONVENTION OF THE NATIONAL DIALOGUE’

In this regard, we must state without any equivocation that it is misleading
to describe the 15/16 August 2025 meeting to be held at the UNISA Campus
in Tshwane as ‘The First National Convention of the National Dialogue,’ and
an unethical effort to mislead the people of South Africa!

It is not clear what the forthcoming meeting at UNISA is intended to
achieve.
What we know is that it is not intended to proceed in the people-driven
manner which the PTT has agreed upon with the very large swath of civil
society it has engaged over the last eleven (11) months.
As before, and as they have said, the Legacy Foundations, including our
Foundation, will continue to pursue the noble and historic objective of
helping to encourage the holding of the National Dialogue, including its
suggested National Conventions.
They will therefore re-engage civil society during this coming week to honour
this commitment, which is a generational opportunity to reimagine our
country and save it from the abyss.

As they do this, they will continue to abide by the ethical prescripts that:
● they must always be honest and truthful in their interactions with the
people, not beholden to any parochial interests; and
● remain loyal to the perspective of having a truly citizen-led national
dialogue in which the millions of our citizens will engage one another,
without let or hindrance, to exercise their sovereign authority to determine
their destiny!
All this is critical to the achievement of the historic objective to build a
peaceful, safe, non-racial, non-sexist, and prosperous democratic South
Africa, free of the scourges of poverty, underdevelopment, ignorance,
unemployment, inequality, and corruption.

Yours sincerely,

Geraldine J Fraser-Moleketi
Chairperson of the TMF

Please Note that this letter was first published in the Thabo Mbeki Foundation Website and it is published in the Radio Freedom Website with their permission.