The Department of Social Development is working tirelessly to ensure that no person goes to bed hungry, announcing that food parcels are being distributed to thousands of families in dire need of assistance across the country.
Addressing the media on Wednesday, Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu said over 58 000 households and about 250 000 people have already started receiving these food parcels through the Community Nutrition Development Centres (CNDCs) and Knock and Drop deliveries coordinated by provinces.
This was made possible by the National Departments that have allocated a sum of R20 million and R23 million from the Solidarity Fund to provide emergency food parcels to the value of R700 per household.
While the country is on a standstill due to the COVID-19 pandemic, poverty and hunger have been rearing its ugly head and Zulu said they have been witnessing this first hand.
“We have been at the forefront of addressing requests to rescue our people from this as well as to provide them with nutritional relief,” she said.
The beneficiaries include current recipients of CNDCs; those in closed centre feeding programmes, home community-based care and lunch on clubs qualifying for the CNDCs emergency food parcels, in addition to families that need food assistance which is not supported through the Social Relief of Distress Fund (SRD) and other programmes.
The department also announced 163 homeless shelters for accommodating over 14 000 displaced people countrywide with the number fluctuating as some run away, with some coming back and some not.
Zulu said they have also provided Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs), dignity packs, food, sanitisers, sleeping mattresses and blankets and substance abuse and psycho-social support services.
They have also started providing soft skills development at homeless shelters and where possible have tried reuniting them with their families.
She said about 10 000 people have received psychosocial services in relation to COVID-19 to date.
Social grants provide safety net
While the department has different programmes to address COVID-19, Zulu said the payment of all social grants remains a critical safety net for the poor during this time.
“We will continue to ensure that all those who are due to receive their social grants do so without any hindrances.”
She said an increase of R300 for the Child Support Grant will be paid only in May 2020, per child.
From June to October 2020, a R500 grant will be paid to caregivers of the children on the Child Support Grant.
She said the amount per child will revert to R440 per month from June.
She said many organisations have argued that the department has short-changed the children.
“While I acknowledge that all the proposals were sound and well-motivated, we were unfortunately not able to provide the necessary funding to accommodate every one of the proposals,” she said.
While the proposal to increase the Child Support Grant by R500 per child per month resonates with the department, the intervention would have cost R38 billion for six months.
“Clearly, this would have left very little room for the other interventions to be implemented, especially for the millions of unemployed adults and those working in the informal sector.”
While she agrees the children are the most vulnerable, with the lowest grant of all available grants, this is why she said, the department had allocated the bulk of the budget towards households with children.
“We have allocated R21.8 billion, which is the lion’s share of the total funds allocated by National Treasury towards households with children who receive the child support grant.”
Meanwhile, all other existing social grants are increased by R250 per month from May to October 2020.
Easing regulations for payment of grants
Minister Zulu said her department had requested relevant departments to consider relaxing transport and easing regulations for use of community halls for social grant payments during the first week of the payment cycle for social grant beneficiaries during the peak payment period.
The department has also engaged with retailers and the Post Office to assist with ensuring that social distancing and sanitising requirements are implemented at all access points, while all staff dealing with the public have masks and gloves and the necessary PPE.
SASSA is also negotiating with retailers and other stakeholders for assistance with the provision of masks for older persons who will be in queues.
They have since separated the payment dates for older persons and those living with disabilities from the other social grant beneficiaries.
“This means that for the month of May, older persons and persons with disabilities can start collecting their money from the 4th of May since the 3rd falls on a weekend. For all other grant payments, the money will be available from the 6th of May onwards for May payments.”
Gender-Based Violence
With regards to the Gender-Based Violence (GBV) incidents that have seen an upsurge since lockdown, the Minister said they have strengthened their efforts by adding qualified social workers to address this widespread problem and has urged people to speak up and report abuse.
Movement of children during lockdown
Minister Zulu also addressed the issue of the movement of children.
She said the department had received numerous calls and concerns about the movement of children during the lockdown.
Another challenge they have been facing is that regulations currently do not cover for the movement of children who have visited their family members and now need to return to their parents.
“We have made proposals to this end to amend such regulations to allow those children to return back to their parents. These will also be gazetted soon,” she said.
Under the current regulations, provision has been made for co-parental rights and responsibilities to be exercised by those parents with joint co-parenting responsibilities, with a court order and/or a parenting plan registered with the office of the family advocate.
“We have made proposals to include a form that will facilitate permission for the movement of children inter-provincially that will also include children with parents/caregivers with informal co-parenting arrangements. This will be gazetted soon,” she added.
Post-COVID-19
She has called on communities to do everything in their power to fight the pandemic.
“We must be conscious of the fact that there will be post-COVID-19 and therefore, everything that we do now must ensure we must sustain our programmes,” she told the media.
“From now until October, six months down the line, our people are going to ask us, ‘yes, thank you very much for that period that you did something to support us, but what about the future?’”
Zulu said it’s for this reason they are thinking about the future and intensifying efforts by the department and the South African Social Security Agency's hunger-targeting food and nutrition distribution programmes.
The department is also working on upscaling existing programmes - and innovating new and responsive ones through partnerships that target and mitigate the growing COVID-19-induced human and social calamity. – SAnews.gov.za
