Bhisho’s social shambles
MEC must explain why her organogram shows 354% rise
EASTERN Cape social development MEC Nancy Sihlwayi will have to explain to the Bhisho legislature how her department’s organogram jumped from 4 569 employees to 16 206.
That’s according to the legislature’s portfolio committee report on social development, which is scheduled to be tabled before the house today.
The report shows that the provincial department’s approved organisational structure had increased by more than 354%.
This increase comes at a time when 71.1% of the budgeted 4 559 posts are still vacant.
The committee had found that some existing posts occupied by employees in the department were not catered for in the approved structure.
It also found that the allocated budget for the department could not support the structure.
“The MEC must appraise the committee on the legal standing of the approved organogram and also what they are doing not to exacerbate the situation,” reads the report, expected to be tabled by committee chair Christian Martin.
The committee’s report states that Sihlwayi must respond in writing to the committee within 30 days of the adoption of the report.
The committee also found that R13-million earmarked for the renovation of early childhood development centres (ECDs) had vanished.
The renovations to the ECDs were not done, the report says.
A forensic investigation to establish the whereabouts of the missing R13-million is being conducted, the report continues.
The department will be given 30 days from the adoption of the report to finish the outcome of the forensic investigations.
“Consequence management must also be instituted against any official who may be implicated and law enforcement agencies must be brought in,” the committee report further recommends.
A report by Eastern Cape social development department chief operations officer Xola Ntshona in 2014 revealed that two-thirds of the daycare centres in the province were in unsafe structures which did not meet basic legal requirements. Ntshona’s findings also revealed that although the state was injecting a lot of money into ECDs, one in 10 centres in the Eastern Cape was a shack or a mud structure that put the lives of toddlers at risk.
There are more than 1 000 ECD centres, and the department’s research revealed that 689 were not registered with the department as required by law.
Ntshona’s report showed that Buffalo City Metro was the worst municipality for fly-by-night centres with 216 of 223 visited during the survey being unregistered.
The O R Tambo region was the second-worst offender. Of 185 ECD centres visited by researchers in Mthatha and its surroundings, 104 ECDs were not registered.
The portfolio committee’s report states that the department subsidised 17.5% [of the] children in centres which did not have registered ECD programmes. —