25 May 2026
To download a soundbite of Ms Masango’s remarks, click on this link: https://iono.fm/e/1679302
Thank you, Chairperson. Good morning to my colleagues again, and our stakeholders and media partners among us. Thank you for this opportunity.
Topic for discussion:
- Underfunding and poor institutional support for the Central Drug Authority
- Capacity issues at the National Development Agency
- National Treasury’s directive to verify social grant beneficiaries
Central Drug Authority
South Africa faces significant challenges in terms of illegal drug markets, with cannabis, methamphetamine (locally known as "tik"), heroin and cocaine being the most prominent. Alcohol consumption also remains high in South Africa, with binge drinking contributing to significant social issues, including gender-based violence, underage drinking and health complications like foetal alcohol spectrum disorders. This is the scientific information that was reported to the Portfolio Committee by the Central Drug Authority (CDA).
The CDA coordinates the government’s response to substance abuse. We have no fewer than 21 departments, and the CDA ensures their work is coordinated at the national, provincial and local levels.
This Authority has a very important mandate, which includes:
- to monitor and oversee the implementation of the National Drug Master Plan (NDMP);
- to advise government on policies and programmes related to substance abuse and drug trafficking; and
- to ensure the development of prevention, early intervention and after-care strategies and ensure that each government department develops performance indicators.
Despite its critical mandate, the CDA is seriously constrained from fully implementing it. It faces these challenges:
- The five-year term of the CDA Board ended in March 2026. The department knew the Board's term would end, but did not put measures in place in time to ensure a seamless transition from one Board to the next. It only submitted the candidates' names to Parliament, as required by the Act, three weeks before the end of March. This did not give Parliament enough time to conduct the recruitment process, which involves establishing a joint sub-committee consisting of Members of the Portfolio Committee in the National Assembly and the Select Committee in the National Council of Provinces.
- The Prevention and Treatment of Substance Act established the CDA as an advisory body located within the Department of Social Development. Its Secretariat is embedded within departmental structures, leading to blurred accountability and reduced institutional autonomy. It thus has a very limited authority over its work.
- As a result, the CDA does not operate with an independent budget, and funds remain under the Department of Social Development (DSD)’s control. This has created a serious misalignment in accountability that the Portfolio Committee is gravely concerned about. The CDA reported to the committee that the financial expenditure attributed to it was developed by the department without its involvement. Most concerningly, over the past two financial years (2023/2024 and 2024/2025), the financial expenditure report reflected alarming over expenditure of R2.2 million (131.88%) in 2023/2024 and R3.8 million (157.45%) in 2024/2025. The CDA emphatically distanced itself from this expenditure. Its position was that it is expected to account for expenditure when it has no control over procurement or service providers. It becomes an issue when they say to us, you are the one who created this law that puts us in the department, and so you cannot expect us to now account for the funds that we had no authority over. So, it actually makes the Central Drug Authority an authority with no authority, as it were.
- Over the years, the CDA remained underfunded. In 2023/2024, it was allocated a budget of R9 million despite it costing its APP at R20 million, but the committee notes the additional R9.9 million allocated for the 2026/2027 financial year.
- It remains unclear who should be held accountable for this over expenditure. The committee requested that the department and the CDA work together to draft a detailed financial expenditure report showing their individual expenditures. To date, that report has not been forwarded to the committee.
- Over the past five years, the budget of the CDA remained static, with no inflation adjustments or personnel costs.
- Since its establishment in 2008, it has operated without an independent CDA Secretariat led by a Director, as required by the Act.
Despite these challenges, the CDA has worked hard to oversee the implementation and reporting on the National Drug Master Plan by 21 government departments through their Mini Drug Master Plans. Concerningly, only 10 of these 21 departments reported on their implementation of the National Drug Master Plan in the 2024/2025 financial year.
At a local level, they have overseen and coordinated the work of Provincial Substance Abuse Forums and Local Drug Action Committees. Through its stakeholder engagements, the CDA reported to the committee the following achievements:
- Strong multi-sectoral collaboration is advancing implementation of the National Drug Master Plan with local, national and international stakeholders.
- Civil society and NGOs are delivering critical frontline services, including harm reduction, HIV/TB integration and prevention.
- Research and surveillance through the South African Medical Council’s South African Community Epidemiology Network on Drug Use (SACENDU) are strengthening evidence-based policy development.
- Regional and global partnerships (AU, SADC, UNODC, WHO, INHSU, ISSUP, etc.) are enhancing coordination and capacity.
What needs to be done?
- Urgently reform the CDA to make it an independent advisory body not only for the Department of Social Development but for all the government departments and other stakeholders that have a role in the fight against drugs and substance abuse.
- Strengthen its institutional positioning within government with a dedicated budget and human resource capacity.
- Strengthen its Secretariat to formalise a scientific monitoring and evaluation system for oversight, engagements and reporting.
- Expedite the amendment of the Prevention of and Treatment of Substance Abuse Act to reform the CDA, as highlighted above.
Repositioning the CDA will align it with other independent advisory agencies in countries such as the UK, which the committee visited in March 2026 to learn best practices from the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). ACMD provides independent scientific advisory work that influences drug policies across government ministries.
National Development Agency (NDA)
The NDA is a Schedule 3A Public Entity established by the National Development Act of 1998. Its primary mandate is to contribute towards the eradication of poverty and its causes by granting funds to CSOs for the purposes of:
- Carrying out projects or programmes aimed at meeting the development needs of poor communities; and
- Strengthening the institutional capacity of other CSOs involved in direct service provision to poor communities.
When we think about the levels of poverty in this country, you would think that the civil society organisations in communities that need this funding would be receiving it as and when they need it. But despite this critical mandate, this Agency continues to be plagued with institutional instability at the senior level and underfunding. It has not had a permanent CEO since 2021.
The term of its board ended in December 2025, and by then, it was operating under an acting Chairperson after its permanent Chairperson had been removed in October 2025 by the former Minister. Over the medium term, it is allocated a budget of R700 million, with R225 million for the 2026/2027 financial year. All these capacity issues have seriously undermined the NDA's performance.
Notwithstanding these challenges, the NDA, with its limited budget, funded 118 civil society organisations. It mobilised R64 million from third parties.
The committee conducted oversight, and we had a taste of what is possible had the agency been operating at full capacity. Because it is a national agency, had it been working at full capacity and represented in every corner of South Africa, we saw what was possible.
The committee visited one successful NDA-funded CSO in KwaZulu-Natal called Qalekhaya Shining Star Cooperative, which operates in the manufacturing and food security sectors and primarily targets unemployed women and youth. It also visited two CSOs in Johannesburg: Bonang Masikhule Primary Co-operative and Rotanganedza Community Care, which focus on income generation, food security and women and youth empowerment.
We went to an area in KwaZulu-Natal where you do not drive to the actual place. You drive, park the car, then walk to the project. But the NDA has been able to get there and actually assist communities that are always ready to receive assistance to do the work in their communities.
SASSA – National Treasury conditions
During the 2025/2026 budget allocation process for SASSA, National Treasury imposed stringent conditions on SASSA to implement, with the aim of eliminating fraud and payment of social grants to ineligible beneficiaries. Accordingly, SASSA has rolled out biometric registration, bank verification and life certification. SASSA reported that these interventions resulted in savings of R44 million per month. Out of 420 000 social grant reviews, it completed 243 275 and lapsed about 169 049 as part of the milestone to clean the system.
The agency has been plagued by ghost beneficiaries, people who should not be receiving grants, people who are working and receiving grants, and so on and so forth. But I must also mention that those verifications are actually in law for us to do them. So the National Treasury just brought it to the fore, saying these verifications must happen.
Even though the committee notes these gains, it remains concerned over the reported cases of non-payment of social grants to beneficiaries while the verification process has not been completed. This has resulted in hardship for many beneficiaries. This has resulted in exclusions of possibly eligible beneficiaries that the committee had cautioned against. The committee calls for this to be urgently addressed.
The committee supports any interventions to rid the social grant payment system of fraud and corruption, and to prevent the payment of social grants to ineligible beneficiaries, but this should not be done at the expense of eligible beneficiaries.
We welcome the National Treasury verifications 100%, but we caution about the hardship this might cause very, very deserving beneficiaries, because most of the people are older persons. These are people who say I have chronic medication to buy. I am looking after my grandchildren. One payment not being made just brings hassle to those families. We really, really welcome this, especially now that savings are coming out of this, but the savings cannot be at the expense of people who should be receiving.
Arrange a tour