Millions allocated to fight gender based violence

The Eastern Cape government has prioritised gender-based violence and femicide, setting aside millions of rand to fight the scourge in the current financial year.

While social development has budgeted R 38.9m towards GBV programmes, the department of safety wants to get to the bottom of why there was little conviction in cases of violence against women and children.

Safety MEC Weziwe TikanaGxothiwe announced while delivering the budget and policy speech that they would roll out what she termed as the court watching brief (CWB) programme, which she said would prioritise GBV cases.

She said: “This initiative will allow for effective oversight over the police’s role in ensuring court-ready case dockets are handled properly, but most importantly, this will result in the identification of systemic problems to be addressed by provincial police management, the NPA, and others within the justice system, thus enabling an improved turnaround time in these cases.”

Social development MEC Siphokazi Mani-Lusithi said 30 social workers who will work with abused women would be employed.

She also said R49m was allocated towards child protection; R11m towards fighting substance abuse.

Mani-Lusithi said 536 early childhood centres would benefit from the budgeted R345.5m while R33.6m would go towards empowering people living with disabilities.

The MEC allocated R88.3m towards old age homes.