Many foster kids could go hungry this Christmas

The department of social development will not be able to meet the November 28 deadline set by the High Court in Pretoria to process a backlog of 41,000 foster care cases, an administrative hurdle that could see many orphans going hungry this Christmas.

In an effort to avert the non-payment of foster care grants, the department was hoping the National Treasury would continue to pay, despite the deadline.

The emergency situation was caused by provincial social development departments not finishing the work in time to meet the deadline.

Only the Eastern Cape was hoping to finish its cases in time or soon after, due to the faster pace at which it was dealing with the issue.

Fearing the grants will lapse after the deadline, the social development department is going to approach the court to request an extension.

The portfolio committee on social development commended the “significant progress” made as the number of outstanding cases had dropped since September from 90,634 to 41,609 on November 4. In September the committee was sceptical the department could clear the backlog.

At an earlier hearing, the committee was told 32,269 cases had been completed during September and the first two weeks of October. The outstanding balance at the time was 51,956.

The committee received a provincial breakdown of the remaining cases for Mpumalanga as 510; Northern Cape 904; Limpopo 2,717; Free State 4,780; Eastern Cape 5,067; Gauteng 5,405; North West 7,013; Western Cape 8,250 and KwaZulu-Natal 18,492.

Committee chairperson Mondli Gungubele blamed the lack of legislation.

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