Update
KAROO NEWS - "Parents are being tortured by the cries of their hungry children, as they resort to eating grass and sticks."
These were the words of Kobus Botha, MPL and Eastern Cape Shadow MEC for Social Development, in his report to the EC Parliament on Friday 26 January.
According to Botha, the runaway cost of living crisis is decimating communities across the Eastern Cape, pushing desperate families deeper into poverty to the point that children are starving to death, while the department mandated to care for them has failed dismally in doing so.
"At a time when the need is greatest, the Department of Social Development (DSD) has opted to cut back spending on food parcels. The horrific conditions in Cwebeni village in Port St Johns in the OR Tambo district are sadly not unique. It is found across the province, especially in rural areas," he said.
During an interview with Graaff-Reinet Advertiser, Botha challenged said the latest statistics for this financial year show that 21,8% of adults (more than one in every five adults) and 28% of children (roughly three in every ten children) in the OR Tambo district live below the poverty line.
As the fourth most populated district in the country, with an estimated 1,5 million people, even a conservative estimate places over 300 000 people below the poverty line.
No money for food
After a previous report to Social Development, MEC Bukiwe Fanta responded to parliamentary questions from Botha, revealing that close to 90 000 people in the OR Tambo district had run out of money to buy food.
Despite this, by November last year, the department had only distributed 180 food parcels across the entire district. The department only provided 1 931 food parcels to the entire province.
During 2023 the SAHRC lambasted the provincial government in a report released this week, stating that the state's failure to ensure access to adequate food and nutrition directly contributes to preventable loss of life among children in the Eastern Cape, constituting a violation of their right to life.
According to Botha, the report highlighted that the Eastern Cape faces an unprecedented and dire situation, with data revealing an alarming 27% stunting rate among children in the province.
The SAHRC said 116 children succumbed to severe acute malnutrition (Sam) between April 2021 and April 2022, and an astonishing 1 087 children suffered from malnutrition in the same period. He said that, despite this, the SAHRC's calls for the hunger crisis to be declared a disaster appeared to have fallen on deaf ears.
"The Department has cut the budget allocation for food parcels by close to R1-million for the 2023/24 financial year, down from R6,1-million to R5,2-million.
"The Child Support Grant has not kept pace with inflation, and should be increased above the food poverty line. The SAHRC has now echoed this call," he said.
Botha declared his support for the SAHRC's recommendation that DSD collaborate with the Department of Home Affairs to explore launching a registration campaign targeting unregistered children, ensuring their eligibility for social assistance programmes.
He said he will be raising this issue as a matter of urgency in the Eastern Cape legislature during the next plenary sitting. Many unregistered children suffer because their parents receive no payment from the government, and these children are also not allowed on school transport services.
When these children are admitted to schools in the deep rural areas, they are not permitted to receive any books or stationery, and school clothes donations from DSD also cannot go to these children, as there are not birth certificate numbers available. These children end up being ostracised by communities and become street children.
Read a previous article: Cuts on food grants may be catastrophic
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