KZN NGO funding crisis:  MEC plays the ‘blame game’ 

30 August 2016

Today, during a KZN Department of Social Development (DSD) portfolio committee, MEC Weziwe Thusi again stated that NGO’s in the province will not have their funds cut and that the department is merely undertaking a monitoring and evaluations exercise of NGOs. 

This while NGO’s continue to receive verbal notifications from DSD district offices that their budgets are to be cut according to a departmental master-list which they have been refused written copies of.

Today’s meeting comes after numerous KZN NGO’s came forward claiming that they were told they would either have to reduce services and staff or face closure. 

The DA is disappointed by the MEC’s briefing. We believe she is undertaking political double-speak.

During the briefing, the MEC updated the committee on what the department has termed the ‘NGO Rationalisation Plan’. While the DA welcomes this increased monitoring and evaluation of how NGOs spend their funds, the document does nothing to alleviate fears that well-run, service-driven organisations will have to shut down. 

Unscrupulous or non-performing NGOs should not waste the public's funds. The department's drive seems to be that government can provide better social services than the NGO sector in areas of duplication.

It is alarming to note the department’s spending pattern itself which shows that there is enough money to around – it is just being spent in all the wrong places.

During the recent KZN Treasury Unaudited Close-Out report for 2015/16 it was revealed that the DSD under-spent its budget by R98 million. In trying to explain this massive underspend, the department blamed Treasury, Public Works and NGOs themselves for their failure to spend monies on employing social workers, maintaining infrastructure and paying NGO tariffs.

Yet the department itself was also found to have underspent R78.5 million on payment of NGO tariffs and NGO support services in 2015/16 alone.

And according to today's A-G briefing, during the 2015/16 financial year, the department incurred R104.48 million in irregular expenditure and R533 000 in fruitless and wasteful expenditure.

Presently, the department is facing the same non-performance and underspending on its budget for the first quarter of the current financial year.

And yet again, the MEC is playing a blame game rather than taking proper responsibility for a severe lack of budgetary planning. The department is just making the same mistakes year in and year out.

Today, the HOD spoke again about holding officials to account, however the DA is yet to see measureable outcomes in service delivery and correct budgetary spending on the poor and vulnerable.

Despite facing the same financial constraints, the Western Cape Department of Social Development allocated over R1billion to NGOs in the 2014/15 financial year. This while having a smaller budget than KZN.   

With proper planning and the right priorities it is possible for this department to give KZN’s NGO’s the support they need.

Issued by Rishigen Viranna, DA KZN Spokesperson on Social Development, 30 August 2016