Gauteng dept accuses DA, charities of politicising food relief

The Gauteng department of social development has accused the Democratic Alliance (DA) and charity organisations of “politicising” Covid-19 hunger relief efforts.

This follows complaints by the party and nonprofit organisation Not In My Name about the slow delivery of food parcels as a result of government red tape.

According to spokesperson Thabiso Hlongwane, the department’s controversial decision to institute strict requirements for charities delivering food to the poor was informed by the need to reduce the risk of the coronavirus.

He was responding to criticism by the DA and Not In My Name, which both criticised the red tape, accusing government of attempting to centralise food relief efforts in order to take all the credit.

The charity organisation was also concerned that forcing organisations to only donate through government’s food bank would mean food never reaching its intended beneficiaries.

According to Hlongwane, the provincial department had, as of Sunday last week, handed out 382,935 food parcels to families. This was in addition to the 200,000 beneficiaries the department has had under its care in its nutrition programme for destitute families since December 2019.

“Social development MEC Panyaza Lesufi has called for an end to this politicisation of the issue of food parcels.

“We, as a department, continue to ensure we follow up any indication of corruption or breaking the law, because it disrupts the work that we are trying to do,” said Hlongwane. “But we cannot be chasing everything the DA says and when you look into it, it turns out there is nothing.”

Hlongwane was referring to earlier statements by the DA calling on the department to investigate allegations that local councillors may benefiting unduly from the distribution of food parcels.

“We have always had social relief packages on an annual basis and the food bank system has always been in existence.”

Meanwhile, the department has used government’s Covid-19 response as an opportunity to give some homeless people in Johannesburg and Tshwane an unprecedented opportunity to receive medical treatment for drug addiction.

Medical practitioners, social workers and family experts were deployed to shelters across the province to assist willing (and unwilling) homeless drug addicts.

“We are catching them. Even though some of them run away, they come back,” said Hlongwane. “They are being assisted with methodone in order to deal with the addiction, so most of the day they are tired from the methodone and they sleep.

“We also have social workers – we call them family experts – and they try and trace the families so we can eventually reunite them.”

There were 5,809 homeless people captured into the system, although the numbers varied daily because of those who fled the shelters.

But not everyone is on board with government’s homeless rehabilitation efforts. There are still hundreds of homeless people on the streets of Johannesburg, despite movement restrictions and curfew.

For people like Tsepho Mophetse, a 31-year-old homeless man who begs for donations at various intersections on the West Rand, the prospect of being “captured” by government to live in one of the shelters is not ideal.

This was because he perceived them to be a kind of prison.

Although he would like to get help from government, he would much rather have a job than be “stuck” in a shelter.

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