When Minister Lindiwe Zulu presented Budget Vote of the Department of Social Development to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) yesterday, she said she presented it in the eye of a turbulent storm unlike any faced before.
The Department of Social Development is counted among those in the frontlines, she said. “It is in this regard,” she continued, “that we urgently assumed a stance by which we are strengthening the capabilities of our programmes relative to the challenges that accompany the Covid-19 pandemic.”
According to her, the challenges demand the department formulates and implements responsive, impactful and qualitatively life-improving solutions. “Within the context of the Covid-19 pandemic our programmatic responses are guided by the mandate to work hard and smart towards improving what is good for our society, and bettering the quality of life of every South African. Our focus is on those who are most vulnerable,” she added.
This budget vote calls upon all South Africans to muster the requisite courage to innovate extraordinary policy, programmatic and service delivery initiatives, and society-wide partnerships that are intentionally targeted at flattening the curves of inequalities, poverty, hunger, gender-based violence and femicide, youth economic exclusion and substance abuse.
Ms Zulu told the NCOP that the measures outlined in her department’s adjusted budget are directed at responding not only to the pandemic, but also to enable “our people to rebound to productive lives faster, thereby ensuring that they actively define and build our collective future: the South Africa we want and the citizen that we want to inhabit it”.
The department’s budget was reduced from R197.7 billion to R182.24 billion. However, when the National Treasury presented the supplementary budget, that is government’s funding response to Covid-19, the department received an additional R25.5 billion. This amount, according to Ms Zulu, was supplemented by a R15.48 billion reduction from the baseline, and thereby bringing the total budget allocation for the Covid-19 response to R40 955 billion.
The department’s annual budget was readjusted upwards to R223.2 billion for the current financial year (2020/21). This is a significant budget increase of 8.13% when the inflation rate is at 4.6%. The increase was caused by budget reallocations to three budget items, namely: social assistance grants – R15. 4 million; early childhood development (ECD) conditional grants – R64.5 million, and operational funding – R56 million.
South African Social Security Agency (Sassa’s) administrative costs remain unchanged at R7.7 million, as no additional funding was received for this function in the current financial year. As such, Ms Zulu said, these costs will be funded from re-prioritised budget.
Ms Delmaine Christians who represents the Northern Cape Province in the NCOP for the Democratic Alliance (DA), said the people are in despair because of the ruling party’s broken promises. The DA salutes the healthcare workers who are at the forefront in the struggle against Covid-19, she said.
The government’s increase in social grants and the R350 offered to the needy as strategies to mitigate the effects of Covid-19 have failed because of poor and corrupt administration in the Social Development department. Too many people became victims of poverty, notwithstanding those plans of mitigation. She called on the minister to cut all the red tape.
The MECs for the Eastern Cape, Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal, North West and Mpumalanga who participated in the budget debate supported the department’s budget. The MECs also highlighted the achievements of their departments in their provinces.
Mr Andrew Arnolds of the Economic Freedom Fighters who represents the Western Cape Province in the NCOP said the EFF objects to the department’s budget. The EFF lost all hope in the department when it politicised the distribution of food parcels.
Mava Lukani.
22 July 2020
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