Gauteng Department of Social Development neglects ECDs

15 March 2020

The Gauteng Department of Social Development (DSD) cares little about the Early Childhood Development (ECD) sector and has once again under-performed and has failed to meet its targets for the third quarter of the 2019/20 financial year.

This was revealed in the department’s third quarterly report for the 2019/20 financial year.

According to the report, the department has failed to achieve the following targets:

Only 765 children have been placed on the foster care placement waiting list compared to the target of 1,338 children;

5934 families received crisis intervention services (social work services) instead of the target of 6266 families;

27 substance abuse users were admitted at registered and founded half-way houses against the target of 64;

Only 185 NPOs were capacitated compared to the target of 312 NPOs;

11,285 dignity packs were distributed compared to the target of 464,000 dignity packs;

244,552 people benefited from poverty reduction initiatives compared to the target of 614,728 people.;

59,779 people were issued food relief through food banks compared to the target of 108,432 people; and

1,906 households accessed food through the DSD feeding programmes (centre based) compared to the target of 2,876 households.

This clearly indicates that most of the vulnerable members of this province did not all receive social welfare services from this department.

It is a shame that sanitary pads, school uniforms and food parcels as well as the social work services did not get to those who need them the most.

This indicates that this department is not capable of delivering on its mandate because it consistently underperforms yet no one is held accountable.

It is high time that this department implements a consequence management system that will ensure that those in top management are held accountable for not delivering these services.

The DA has tabled questions in the Gauteng Legislature to ascertain when the new MEC for this department will be appointed to ensure that there is accountability.

Issued by Refiloe Nt’sekhe, DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Social Development, 15 March 2020