The Portfolio Committee on Social Development has embarked on a three-day oversight visit to Gauteng to investigate the funding challenges experienced by the non-profit organisation (NPO) sector in the province. Funding issues heightened by ongoing national budget cuts have led the Gauteng Department of Social Development to cut budgets in the 2023/2024 financial year, the committee’s research report explains.
The committee is undertaking the oversight because of reports that NPOs face closure, potentially leaving destitute many vulnerable and indigent communities. The committee’s oversight seeks to get responses on this issue from relevant government departments dispensing services in this sector and to engage with the NPO sector understand the effect of the budget cuts to their services and the communities they serve.
Anything that affects the wellbeing of the poor and the vulnerable will always get our utmost attention, the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Social Development, Ms Bridget Masango, noted during the committee’s oversight visit to the Gauteng Legislature and the Ikusasa Lethu Youth and Elderly Project in Soweto.
Her statement stemmed from recent media reports and a public outcry about the Gauteng Department of Social Services and funding cuts to NPOs. The committee therefore took a decision to go see for themselves what was going on, Ms Masango said.
The committee heard from the Gauteng Department of Social Development about its interventions to ease the funding crisis. This prompted Ms Masango to say that contrary to reports, “the presentation by the department to the committee showed that 95% of NPOs in Gauteng have already been duly funded. And we have been given an undertaking that by the 31 of March 2025 those that qualify but have not yet received their funding would have received their funding.”
In addition, and to ensure openness and transparency about NPO funding in Gauteng, the provincial department is planning a public signing ceremony with all NPOs. “We would further publish them to ensure that they are known by the communities they serve,” said the MEC of Social Development in Gauteng, Ms Faith Mazibuko. She further added that NPOs are the backbone of government welfare programmes because, as she noted, 70% of government services are rendered by NPOs.
This picture of the NPOs critical role in the government’s service delivery ecosystem “created a picture that is totally different to the one that the committee had in mind initially,” said Ms Masango. Furthermore, “When we went to Ikusasa Lethu Youth and Elderly Project in Soweto,” she said, “we heard and saw for ourselves the impressive relationship that exists between the department and this NPO. Above all, we were impressed to hear that all the commitments that the department has made to it have been met.”
The caveat of the day was a revelation that no universal municipal bylaw governs the legal status and operations of NPOs in Gauteng, which makes it difficult for the Gauteng Department of Social Development to ensure that NPOs are compliant. If this is not addressed, Ms Masango noted, “it would continue to hinder the rendering of critical services to the poor and the vulnerable in the province.”
Committee member Mr Tshilidzi Munyai agreed with the Chairperson saying that NPOs should be governed by universal regulations that are not too expensive for the NPOs and the province to comply with. “NPOs can’t be subjected to stringent bylaws that are not universal and that the department can’t afford,” he suggested.
On this point, the Deputy Director-General of the Gauteng Department of Social Development, Mr Onkemetse Kabasia, noted, “We are to commit a huge portion of our budget to pay for the costly compliance fees to ensure that NPOs are compliant with a list of stringent municipal bylaws regarding building regulations, requirements and legal status of NPOs.”
He further urged the committee to conduct a study to assess the efficacy and compatibility of the welfare legislation because, as it stands now, it is not instructive as to who and how these bylaws should be funded and administered.
The Chairperson agreed that such an anomaly should be corrected to ensure that the welfare legislation is responsive to existing misalignments to ensure that services rendered by NPOs to poor and vulnerable communities are seamless.
Abel Mputing
26 March 2025
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