Durban - Concerned non-profit organisations (NPOs) in KwaZulu-Natal hit out at the Department of Social Development on Thursday over feared subsidy cuts from next month.
NPOs convened a meeting in Malvern, Durban, to discuss a stalemate with the department.
The department has insisted there would be no cuts.
However several NPOs said they had been told in face-to-face meetings by officials that the cuts would start from next month.
Dale Schonewolf, of the KZN Welfare, Social Services and Development Forum, said they had since been invited to meet Social Development MEC Weziwe Thusi “within a week”.
“We will gladly see the MEC and that will determine what happens next,” she said.
The MEC was invited to Thursday’s meeting but could not attend because of prior commitments.
According to a snap survey of NPOs, subsidy cuts would affect more than 525 000 beneficiaries.
Of the 39 surveyed by a forum task team, 30 operated in the greater Durban and Pietermaritzburg regions, while one was in Zululand and eight did not disclose their region.
“Can you imagine the impact on 200 centres if these are the results from 39 centres?” asked Lalita Harie, a task team member and executive director of Durban and Coastal Mental Health.
She said 63% of the beneficiaries were in rural communities, while more than 423 000 of the beneficiaries were black.
Of the 39 centres surveyed, five had been warned of looming subsidy cuts by an official of the department.
“The cuts will lead to the closures of care centres, a reduction of staff, retrenchments, this will impact on the quality of life for people who are breadwinners who will lose their incomes,” Harie said.
Former ANC MPL and member of the social development committee in the provincial legislature, Priscilla McKay, said there was an anti-NPO sentiment in some quarters, as it was believed the organisations should transform more.
“There was a distrust of the sector,” she said.
“The question would often be why are they not working in the rural areas. So this is not a new concern, but in spite of the massive steps that organisations have made they want to cut back.”
Julie Todd, of the Pietermaritzburg Child Welfare, said NPOs were scathing about the government’s treatment of the sector and said NPOs were not funded by government, merely subsidised.
“We do not even get the subsidies on time, we do the work in June and we are paid two months later and then they lie to us and tell us we submitted the wrong documents, but we know someone did not sign off, it is not acceptable,” she said.
Zama Mabaso, chairman of the NPO Directors Network, said the cuts were inconsistent with the National Development Plan, which has set a target of having 55 000 social workers working in the country.
Currently there are 16 000.
“If those social workers are not working, what will happen to the NDP?”
The department said it would release a statement today, but earlier denied there would be cuts in government funding to organisations - pointing out that no letters to this effect had been issued.
However, it conceded it was undergoing a process of “rationalising services” - where it planned to redirect resources from urban to rural KwaZulu-Natal.
Daily News