Cutting NPO funding will affect vulnerable Gauteng residents

27 July 2023

The Gauteng Department of Social Development (DSD) will be cutting funding for NPOs next year, severely affecting this province's most vulnerable residents.

The most affected NPOs are those in the following sectors: older persons, persons living with disabilities, children, and people living with HIV and AIDS.

This information was revealed by DSD at the NPOs' regional summit. The NPOs were told to source their own funding for the next financial year because they are no longer part of Premier Panyaza Lesufi's elevated priorities. The priorities are poverty alleviation and substance abuse.

This indicates that Premier Lesufi and the Gauteng MEC for the Department of Social Development, Mbali Hlophe, misled the NPOs about the reversal of the reprioritised budgets. This was a way of temporarily silencing the NPOs.

This government's ill planning and lies will see Gauteng residents witnessing another Life Esidimeni saga.

NPOs will not be able to source their own funding because the economy is not growing, and companies are barely managing to stay afloat, especially with load-shedding. Companies do not have additional funds to support NPOs.

NPOs They will be forced to shut down, and Gauteng's most vulnerable will suffer without much-needed shelter, food, and social welfare services.

The DA will mobilise Gauteng communities through its petition to prevent this funding model that will affect the NPO sector.

Issued by Refiloe Nt'sekhe, DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Social Development, 27 July 2023