The office of the Overberg Development & Empowerment Centre (Odec) is in a neat unassuming house in Theewaterskloof Municipality on the outskirts of Caledon, some 150km from Cape Town.

The modesty of the premises belies its ambitious vision: “To develop and empower the people living in the Overberg region so that they can become socially and economically sustainable.”

From August to January, more than 50 percent of the working population of Caledon are forced to survive on government grants as the surrounding farms offer limited work opportunities in this time.

This is why Odec director Dawid Kroukamp is keen to develop the “income-generating” arms of Odec’s activities. Although there seems to be an infinite supply of land, there is none available on the heavily subsidised terms that his plans require. This means that his farming projects are restricted to micro-enterprises such as piggeries and poultry farms.

Kroukamp has a proposal to acquire a farm with 125ha of land at nearby Riviersonderend. He has drawn up a feasibility document, approached the National Lottery Board for funding and is in the process of identifying a board of directors.

Odec provides access to training for the pig and poultry farmers as well as access to the tiny pieces of land and the market.

The farming project is just one of Odec’s seven sectors of activity. The “income-generating sector” has a catering project, a leather-making project and a pottery-making project. The other five sectors are: human rights, HIV/Aids programme and home-based care, youth development, women empowerment, and arts, culture and sport. During 2010 alone, 1 960 people received advice on human rights issues and 90 percent of the cases that came to Odec were successfully resolved.

Odec is one of the organisations supported by the Social Change Assistance Trust (Scat), which is one of Ditikeni’s 19 shareholders. Ditikeni is an ingenious attempt to link the imperative to promote broad-based black economic empowerment (BEE) with the critical funding needs of non-profit organisations (NPOs). A crucial aspect of this link is the availability of tax advantages on the preference shares used to fund BEE transactions undertaken by Ditikeni. These tax advantages are under threat from proposed amendments.

As with all of Ditikeni’s shareholders Scat is almost obsessive about accountability as well as the active involvement of members of the local community in its projects. This is why Kroukamp spends much of his time keeping records and preparing detailed proposals for his programmes. Every cent received by his office, which has four full-time staff and a monthly budget of R30 000, has to be accounted for. As I am leaving he hands me a 50-page document entitled “Funding proposal for 2010/2011”. After studying it, I think that I might not have seen the like of it since I used to peruse Bidvest’s early work.

Kroukamp understands that it is not just about being able to account to the providers of the funds; the very act of keeping detailed accounts creates the sort of skills that not only empowers individuals but also contributes to Odec’s vision.

The few days that I spent visiting some of Ditikeni’s NPO shareholders remind me of the wonderful energy and commitment that pervades outside the well-resourced formal structures of this country. Given this energy and commitment as well as the remarkable efficiency and effectiveness of structures such as Odec, their survival should surely be encouraged by the tax authorities rather than threatened.