PROVINCIAL NEWS - In a written reply to a parliamentary question, Social Development MEC, Bukiwe Fanta, confirmed that only two food parcels were distributed in January, none in February, and a mere seven in March.
This, despite the department allocating R6,1-million for food relief in the 2024/25 financial year.
Marlene Ewers, DA Shadow MEC for Social Development, says this is not a clerical oversight or administrative lag. "It is a catastrophic failure of basic service delivery at a time of deepening food insecurity and rising hunger.
"The department’s inability to distribute even ten parcels in a quarter must be seen in the context of the South African Human Rights Commission’s damning report into child malnutrition in the Eastern Cape.
The Commission confirmed that 1 087 children were diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition between April 2021 and March 2022, with 116 of those children dying," Ewers says.
She says the same report revealed that the department forfeited R67-million in unspent Social Relief of Distress funds during that period. "These funds could have gone directly towards food support for vulnerable families."
The report also said that one in four children in the province is stunted - mainly due to malnutrition.
"These figures expose a department out of touch with the scale of the crisis and paralysed by poor planning, limited coordination, and a complete absence of urgency.
"While officials cite support for nutrition centres and food gardens, the lived reality for many is starkly different.
"Across communities, the need for immediate food aid remains unmet, and the systems meant to support the poor continue to collapse under weak leadership."
Even though the EC social development department admitted back in 2023 that it had not done enough to distribute food parcels, the situation has not improved.
A number of desperate mothers in the province have resorted to killing themselves and their children due to unbearable poverty.
Ewers calls for an immediate audit of food parcel distribution and Social Relief of Distress fund utilisation across all districts and monthly reporting on relief delivery by district and municipality.
"The Eastern Cape government must urgently implement the SAHRC’s recommendation to declare child malnutrition a provincial disaster.
"In addition, a task team must be established to respond to the systemic failures in food aid distribution with immediate effect."
Ewers says the poorest families go hungry while food parcels sit undelivered and funds remain unspent.
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