Daily Dispatch

Go back to drawing board

IT IS a very good thing that social development MEC Nancy Sihlwayi is today meeting non-profit organisations in Buffalo City after decimating their funding allocations by as much as 1 000%.

But frankly the crisis that has forced wellestablished NPOs that care for thousands of destitute children, infants and battered woman in urban areas to shut down and/or retrench staff should never have happened in the first place.

The department says the decision to effect the cuts was “in line with the transformation agenda” and that the department had “to shift from residential and statutory services to community-based care services”.

Nobody doubts there is a huge need in the far-flung parts of the Eastern Cape, but the practicality of the policy is questionable and the department’s implementation of it so far leaves much to be desired.

What possible rationale is there for slashing to a pittance the funds of established organisations such as East London Child Welfare – it handles about 3 000 cases a year and serves 20 of the most province’s most densely populated residential areas – to the point of forcing them to lay off social workers and close some of their doors?

The cut at EL Child Welfare, from R2.3million to R253 000, forced an extremely valuable organisation in good standing to retrench all of its 12 social workers last week and to close their Southernwood Sunshine Home centre for abused and abandoned children. This apparently happened without any provision being made for children left completely out on a limb.

Meanwhile, quite inexplicably, funding allocations which were in some cases larger than the R253 000 flat rate currently granted to large urban NPOs, have been made to 24 little-known outfits that have now come on line in small towns.

Among these is one listed simply as “Barkly East”. It is one of several NP0s getting amount of R258 104.

The inconsistencies and the pitfalls in this approach hardly need spelling out.

For one thing, if the department intends proceeding as it is, what alternative service will it provide for the thousands of poor and homeless children and battered woman left high and dry in the city’s urban areas?

Another big question is how exactly will the department prove oversight in the rural areas to ensure that every cent of the funding goes where it is supposed to go – to the neediest and most vulnerable people.

Also puzzling is the matter of urbanisation. It is expected to drastically surge across the continent, including in the Eastern Cape. To what extent has this been factored in the current policy, if at all?

Surely it would have been far more sensible to preserve those relief and rescue organisations that service the urban areas so effectively, while simultaneously making careful inroads in the rural areas, building on what works.

Then there is the issue of the 9% increase to the department's overall budget. If its operational budget is being slashed by 2% where’s the rest of the money going?

Sihlwayi needs to find it in her heart to go back to the drawing board.