More than 60% of Non-Profit Organisations in the Eastern Cape did not receive a single cent of their 2020/2021 subsidy payments from the Department of Social Development.
That’s according to the Democratic Alliance in the Eastern Cape, commenting on the response to questions in the Bhisho Legislature by MEC Siphokazi Mani-Lusithi.
DA MPL, Edmund van Vuuren, said that the MEC, in a “very delayed response” had confirmed that of the 2661 department-funded NPOs in the province, 1611 had still not received any subsidy payments for the new financial year as at the end of July.
Among the reasons given by the MEC for the payment delay was that “key personnel” had been on strike for more than six months.
“Personnel that are critical in processes of NPO master lists and allocation letters were on strike for six months and that affected the processes, such that there were delays in (the) master lists for some programmes,” the MEC wrote in her reply.
Other reasons given included that the Department “enhanced its IT system, to have controls and even align it to respond to the current funding policy.”
However, she said despite the good intentions of the system, there were “unintended consequences” which led to the Department having “to suspend some features of the system to the 2020/21 financial year”.
Van Vuuren said “not only has department’s inability to rectify the payment system for decades crippled NPOs in the province and deprived thousands of people in need from critical services, but the department has also gone against its own Service Level Agreements, which it expects organisations it funds to adhere to at all costs.
