(Parliamentary Budget Vote Debate: Social Development)
The Department of Social Development and its entities were supposed to play a key role during the past Covid-19 state of disaster and be a light at the end of a very dark tunnel for the most needy in South Africa.
The reality, however, is that the Department and its entities failed the people.
Mother Teresa once said, “We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.”
A matter that the Minister must address today is the court case between SA Child Care and the Department relating to the payment of conditional early childhood development (ECD) grants, which amount to R15 per child per day.
It is meant for children who are orphans or who have absolutely no other source of food or care. Approval for the grant follows a strict process within the framework of the Division of Revenue Act (DORA).
In some cases, approval was granted in 2019 but no payments have been made to date.
Vulnerable children who depend on this grant for food were denied it during the worst possible time – the pandemic.
Instead, grant funds were used to procure personal protective equipment.
In the initial court ruling, Judge Jansen van Nieuwenhuizen found that the Minister and eight provincial MECs violated their statutory duties, as prescribed by DORA, by not paying out the funds that were allocated to these children.
They also failed to perform their constitutional duties as prescribed by Section 28(1)(c) of the Constitution.
And then instead of honouring the ruling by the court, the Minister and MECs (after conceding on more than ten different occasions that the money is indeed owing) appealed against the ruling. Leave to appeal was granted in December 2020.
Eighteen months later, a notice for trial is issued along with a new instruction to argue whether or not the case has become academic in nature. But in the meantime, not one official has appeared before the court and the most vulnerable ones are still suffering.
This case must be settled for the sake of these children.
Additionally, it is a crying shame that the grant has seemingly stagnated on R15 per child per day for the last nine years.
While the government squanders money on expensive events, hotel accommodation, VIP protection and business-class flights for ministers, these children receive just R15 per day for food, clothing and school stationary.
South Africa will remain a welfare state as long as the Department does not shift its focus to the development and care of our children.
The root of the problem lies with the ANC that approaches everything from an ideological angle, and prefers keeping the people dependent on the state via welfare grants rather than empowering them to take their rightful place in the economy.
As long as the Minister and her Department do not make this mind shift, South Africa will not only be a failed state, but also a welfare state.
The people of South Africa deserve better than the ANC government.
