This statement is a response from the Grahamstown office of the Legal Resources Centre to the request by the National Minister of Social Development for citizens to open their homes to vulnerable children.

The LRC welcomes and supports the call by the Minister. In the Eastern Cape, which is one of the poorest provinces in South Africa, many people and communities have already heeded this call and opened their homes to vulnerable children.
However, the Grahamstown LRC would like to draw to the Minister’s attention the fact that such people receive little or no financial and other support from the Eastern Cape Department of Social Development.

The LRC in Grahamstown has a large client base of people who have taken children into their homes as a place of safety as well as people who have started children’s homes but are not receiving the financial assistance the Department is legally obliged to provide. Currently the LRC has instituted legal proceedings against the Department on behalf of Dianne Lang, a woman who has a children’s home that supports 26 Children. Over the past three years she has cared for over 72 children at a cost of over R320000. She has, to date, not received a cent from the Department. However, through the LRC’s intervention, she has been awarded an ad hoc grant of R180000 (still to be paid) with no undertaking of a repeat payment for subsequent financial years. She is owed over R280000 in the form of safety fee grants.

It appears as if the Department has not budgeted for safety fees for the current financial year. Although the department denies this allegation, the LRC has been unable to establish any other reason why it would not be meeting its obligations in this regard.

The LRC also currently knows of over 50 families caring for about 50 children who qualify for assistance from the Social Development Department. All of these families are low to no income families and many of them rely on older children who have left the family home to send money back to them to assist them in caring for the children that they have opened their homes to. All attempts by the LRC to intervene in order for these families to obtain the assistance to which they are legally entitled have been futile and the organisation has instituted proceedings on behalf of its clients and on behalf of all those who have not been paid their safety fee grants in the Eastern Cape Province.

The LRC also knows that registered children’s homes that receive subsidies for the staff that they employ have had their subsidies to Social Workers increased. However, their overall subsidy has been cut by 10%. All attempts to get explanations from the Department on when grants will be paid, how much will be paid to each staff member etc and copies of signed service level agreements have been futile. It is just five months before this financial year ends and children’s homes are battling to keep their doors open.

Attempts by people to open their hearts and homes to vulnerable children are constantly frustrated by the Social Development Department which continues to shirk its constitutional obligations towards children and to treat with contempt those who attempt to assist them.

The attitude of the Social Development Department in the Eastern Cape is the very antithesis of the underlying philosophy of the Constitution and the sentiments expressed by the National Minister. The LRC calls on Dr Skweyiya to urgently intervene in this unacceptable situation.

ENDS NOTE: The Legal Resources Centre (LRC) of South Africa, an independent, client-based, non-profit public interest law clinic, uses law as an instrument of justice. It works for the development of a fully democratic society based on the principle of substantive equality, by providing legal services for the vulnerable and marginalised who suffer discrimination by reason of race, class, gender, disability or by reason of social, economic, and historical circumstances.