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Provincial social development MEC Patricia de Lille has given illegal daycare centres in the Western Cape six months to contact the department of social development and follow the registration process or risk being shut down. Picture: Cindy Waxa

Illegal daycare centres in the Western Cape have six months to contact the department of social development and follow the registration process or risk being shut down.

On Wednesday social development MEC Patricia de Lille said that, from February 1, her department would be declaring an amnesty period which would give all unregistered day-care centres six months to apply for registration. The programme would end on July 31.

“They must come forward. They will not be punished for running illegal centres. They will rather receive a lot of benefits by following the registration process. We will train the people working at the centres under the Early Childhood Development programme,” De Lille said, adding that there would be no extensions allowed.

This announcement follows the deaths of two toddlers at unregistered creches in 2010. The incidents were a month apart.

Seven-month-old Paton Julie died at the Funky Monkey Daycare Centre on November 4. An investigation found that the owner had abandoned registering the centre despite collecting application forms from Social Development. A month earlier five-month-old Ava Rose Barley had died at Aunty Dawn’s Daycare and Playgroup in Pinelands after falling from a bed.

The department of social development discovered that the owner had not completed the registration process after she confused a letter acknowledging her application for an approval of the registration.

De Lille said once the centres were registered they would have access to a wide range of resources from the department and the City of Cape Town. They would also receive a subsidy of R12 a child per day.

The amnesty period will apply only to already operating daycare centres taking care of more than six children whether they are doing it for money or not.

“Anybody wanting to open a new facility after February 1, 2011 will need to apply first and will be allowed to open only if and when they have met the norms and standards as contained in the Children’s Act. Of course, they will also need to meet the city’s regulations relating to health, safety and fire.”

De Lille said all this could take three months. She said there were about 1333 unregistered and about 900 registered creches in the metro. - Cape Times