WHAT WE ARE: The NONGQAI media family (magazine, blog and YouTube channel) form a free online repository of memories, historical data and analysis relating to the history of South Africa’s Forces and the national security of Southern Africa, past and current. It covers from the very recent to the very ancient past of policing, military developments, intelligence and diplomacy in the region.
OUR GOALS: As media family and database, we have three main objectives: to obtain and preserve raw historical data and insights from actual participants (in the tradition of oral history) for the benefit of future generations; secondly, to inform about current developments that may impact the national security of South Africa; and thirdly, to provide current and ex-members of the services and armed forces with a platform through which to share their stories and photographs, for the reading pleasure of old comrades-in-arms, friends and family, and all those interested in South Africa’s national security history (which played such an important part in our nation’s evolution).
A further, charitable objective is for us as media family to support and amplify the Nongqai Trust’s charitable work, which consists of the Trust assisting veterans who now find themselves in need; we do this through being the Trust’s principal platform for disseminating information and raising funds.
OUR MISSION: NONGQAI’s aim is to promote these goals without glorifying the past, nor wishing to revert in time so as to live again that often contentious past. NONGQAI wishes to help cherish the good in our past, recording history without malice or party political agendas, nor distinction on the base of race, creed or gender.
OUR HISTORY: The original NONGQAI magazine was founded in March 1907 as the official quarterly magazine of the police of the colony of Natal.
After the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910 and the subsequent founding of the Union Defence Force and the national police force in 1913, it was decided to amalgamate the magazines serving the different pre-union colonial forces into one. The name NONGQAI (which in Zulu means “the king’s watchmen”), was chosen for this amalgamated magazine, which replaced the pre-union colonial services magazines such as The Bandolier, The Qakamba, The South African Constabulary Journal and The Transvaal Police Magazine.
The new 1913 version of the NONGQAI thus represented all the forces and related services of the new Union, including the police, the military and the prison service.After the Union became the Republic of South Africa in 1961 the different services tended to develop their own magazines, such as Paratus for the military and Servamus for the police. The 1994 transition to a non-racial democracy brought an end to that era, but not an end to interest in the history of those often turbulent times.
Retired SA Police Brigadier Hennie Heymans therefore took the initiative in 2010 to revive the NONGQAI, this time in e-magazine form, as repository of data, memories and analysis about the proud history of South Africa’s forces.
OUR ALLIANCE OF TWO LEGAL PERSONAS:
The Nongqai media family consists of two separate legal entities, consisting of the traditional magazine on the one hand, and the digital media (Blog and YouTube Channel) on the other. This website forms the joint internet “home” for both, but they legally belong to two separate legal entities. The magazine (Nongqai Publikasies) is part of the Nongqai Trust, registered in the Republic of South Africa. Nongqai Media (the digital component consisting of the Blog and YouTube channel) is wholly owned by a private, limited liability company registered in the Republic of Guatemala, Central America.
1. Nongqai Trust / Nongqai Publikasies
Nongqai Publikasies is part of the NONGQAI TRUST, registration number IT002701/2018 (T).
The NONGQAI TRUST is a charitable, not-for-profit institution that is also officially recognized by and registered with the South African Revenue Service as a PBO, meaning a tax-exempt Public Benefit Organization (see copies of the relevant official authorizations at the end of this section).
NONGQAI is also proud to be recognised by Microsoft as a non-profit, public benefit entity and most grateful to benefit from Microsoft’s invaluable support in terms of free premium software and cloud storage.
As part of a non-profit, the magazines published by NONGQAI Publikasies are available to the public entirely FREE, with no subscriptions or “fire walls”. Donations are, however, welcome and are tax-deductible (we naturally do have some operating costs to cover, even though our editors, managers and contributors are non-salaried volunteers – for that reason, we also do carry paid advertisements).
The auditors of the Nongqai Trust are Botha Rekenmeesters, and its bankers are Standard Bank.
Our registered postal address is:
You can reach us at editor@nongqai.org for matters related to the content of our publications and at admin@nongqai.org for all operating and financial matters.
The editor-in-chief is Brig. Hennie Heymans, and the chair of our Management Committee is Mr Jan de Klerk.
The key volunteers who produce NONGQAI Publikasies, are:
Brig. H.B. (Hennie) Heymans is a retired former senior police officer with experience in national security management, who holds a Masters degree in Strategic Studies. His passion is preserving the proud history of our forces and writing prolifically about it.
Hennie is a Trustee of the NONGQAI TRUST and chairs our editorial panel, and also the Executive Committee of NONGQAI Publications.
Colonel Logan Govender is a retired senior police officer who holds a BA in Police Science and who in 1983 obtained the top score in the national police exams of that year. He is the son of a stalwart former police sergeant.
Logan is a dedicated historian, focused on the policing history of the KwaZulu-Natal province and that of police officers of South African Indian descent in particular. He regularly contributes social news from this ambit, and has helped find and preserve rare photographs unearthed by his research.
Sarie van Niekerk is a veteran police officer (having been part of the very first intake of female recruits). She holds a post-graduate degree in Commerce and has experience as a former senior journalist at the daily BEELD, and is also a linguist specialising in proofreading.
Passionate about the history of women who served with distinction in the South African Forces and preserving their valued contribution, Sarie started and edits the Ladies Edition of NONGQAI.
Henning van Aswegen is an author and journalist with post-graduate degrees in Journalism and Political Science. Experienced in Intelligence (i.a. at the National Intelligence Academy), he has published a substantial number of factual books on the topic, acclaimed for the quality of the research underpinning them. A dedicated historian, Henning is NONGQAI’s sub-editor for intelligence matters. He is also a novelist with a number of children’s books to his credit.
2. GREXPA s.a. / NONGQAI Media
NONGQAI MEDIA is wholly owned by a private, limited liability company, GREXPA s.a. (Grupo Excellentia Panamericano s.a.) duly incorporated in the Republic of Guatemala. The group’s web-site url is: https://grexpa.com, where more detail about it can be found.
The official corporate seal of GREXPAsa
The Certificate of Incorporation of GREXPAsa
This nongqai.org website and blog plus the Nongqai YouTube channel (established in 2022) are wholly owned by GREXPA s.a., which is the registered proprietor of the world-wide web domain: nongqai.org
Dr. Willem Steenkamp, majority shareholder of GREXPA s.a. and managing editor of NONGQAI Media.
Dr Willem P. Steenkamp is a retired former head of the South African diplomatic academy and was the New South Africa’s first ambassador to Black Africa, representing presidents De Klerk and Nelson Mandela. Willem is also an attorney of the high court, intelligence analyst, author, and award-winning entrepreneur. Apart from his Law degrees and a doctorate in Political Science, Willem is an American-certified life and business coach, as well a polyglot linguist with related certificates from the universities of Cambridge, Southampton, and Leeds, plus the Instituto Cevantes of Spain, whose top C2 Spanish diploma he holds (in addition to his knowledge of English, Afrikaans and French). He is a published novelist in both Afrikaans and English.
Willem is the first-born son of the late Maj Gen Frans Steenkamp, a former commanding general of the SAP-SB. He grew up in Durban, South Africa. During his matric year, he won the annual national debating contest for Afrikaans-language high schools.
Willem is the majority shareholder of GREXPA s.a., the managing editor of NONGQAI Media, and editor/producer of the Nongqai YouTube channel.
Willem can be contacted by e-mail at: willem@grexpa.com
Together with his Guatemalan wife, Willem resides in beautiful La Antigua Guatemala (a UNESCO World Heritage site). He manages GREXPA s.a. and NONGQAI Media from there.
The intellectual property rights to the Nongqai logo (as designed by Dr Steenkamp) vests in GREXPA s.a., which has licenced its free (joint) use in perpetuity, to the Nongqai Trust and Nongqai Publikasies.
Copyright to all material published on this website, blog, and its related Nongqai YouTube channel, vest in GREXPA s.a.
FOUNDING LEGAL DOCUMENTS: NONGQAI TRUST
