Funding crisis may close TAC

Aids lobby group the Treatment Action Campaign faces possible closure in January because of a lack of funds, the organisation says.

"As a grant-funded organisation we just cannot afford to run a deficit . besides the fact that over 230 activist organisers will lose their income, the closure of TAC would be a setback for South African democracy," the organisation said in a statement.

The lobby group, formed in 1998 by Zackie Achmat, depends on a five-year grant from the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria for a large portion of its money. In July, the organisation failed to receive its R6.5-million payment.

"Primarily due to poor administration by the primary recipient [of the payment], the national Department of Health, the payment . continues to be delayed," it said.

If the funds were not paid in by the first week of January, the organisation will go into an unsustainable deficit.

The global fund and the Department of Health are scheduled to meet today to resolve the impasse.

The department's spokesman, Fidel Hadebe, said he could only comment after the meeting.