Cape Town - Glitches in the Employment Stimulus Relief Funds have early childhood development (ECD) workers, activists, and parents on edge, as they demand the outstanding funds be paid out before March 31.
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a R1.3 billion ECD stimulus package in October 2020, and since then, said Centre for Early Childhood Development director Eric Atmore, R712 million had been lost because the national Department of Social Development (DSD) could not get a coherent ECD plan together.
“This left R588m, of which R496m was for salary support for 108 000 ECD teachers. This was reduced to R 455m when the National Treasury would not roll over all the unspent funds on the 31st of March 2021. By that date, only a small number of ECD teachers had received the allocated R4 700 per month. The DSD did not announce how many had received the salary relief by that date, despite being asked many times”
“The substantial delay in the payment of salary relief funds is directly because of the incompetence and lack of care by the national DSD and the complex, difficult to access, bureaucratic and discriminatory project management system that was set up by the department and their sub-contractors.
“The extent to which the outstanding salary relief funds have affected ECD teachers and principals is devastating. For large sections of the ECD workforce, it's been close to two years without a salary. Many hundreds of ECD teachers have lost their jobs, many hundreds of ECD centres have closed, and tens of thousands of young children have lost out on their early learning opportunities. The impact has been devastating on children, especially vulnerable children, in ECD centres, principals, teachers, and communities. Children have been left in unsafe communities, at risk of harm from a variety of sources,” said Atmore.
Antonae Dollie, a nursery school teacher and a principal at Happy Hearts Educare in San Remo, Strandfontein, said that during lockdown she struggled to make ends meet and this resulted in her educare centre closing down.
“My centre has been closed since lockdown hit. Due to having no income at all, this has hit me, my household, and my business very hard. I tried to apply for the stimulus relief fund and I was told that I could not apply as the ECD was still closed, and my registration had lapsed. By this time, parents found new educators and my teachers found new jobs.
“I struggled to make ends meet. I raised funds for the necessary PPE by having people donate their unwanted goods and re-selling them. Things are still very tough on our end, as my teachers are receiving a very low income, but are willing to work for it because they have families to feed,” said Dollie.
Handing over the memorandum to the Portfolio Committee on Social Development at Parliament last week, Colleen Daniels Horswell mentioned that the department had shown that it was heartless when it comes to the ECD sector, and despite several letters, demonstrations, and emails to the minister, it is all falling on deaf ears.
"The figures of 50% or more waiting for payouts are ridiculous. The minister employed an NGO to oversee the payouts, then employed another NGO to oversee that the payouts were made, and then it went silent, with no payouts. She has now alluded to the fact that the provincial DSD managers will pay out the money, and the waiting period carries on for desperate ECD workers who have lost so much already," said Horswell.
Social Development spokesperson Lumka Oliphant said that the department had sought assistance from the Harambee Youth and Civil Society Organisation to assist ECD operators in correcting the information. However, given the complexity of the ECD sector and the numerous challenges encountered, the exercise yielded few results.
“The department made a call in May 2021 for ECD programmes to correct their information. This was done by sending SMS and WhatsApp messages to the individual affected ECD operators. Other than that, the department issued quite a number of circulars requesting ECD operators to come forth and correct the information. With all these efforts, the majority of ECD programmes did not come forward. Because of this, the department asked for help from Harambee Youth and Civil Society Organisation to help ECD operators correct the information they gave out.
“Duplicate applications, failures with the verification process, which includes the bank and staff, and determining the existence of the ECD programme are some of the challenges that the department is facing in the implementation of the ECD Stimulus Relief Fund. In some instances, applications have been found to be on Persal (the system used for the administration of the public service payroll) and others deceased, and some of the ECD programmes cannot be traced at all.”
“All these factors contribute to the lack of movement in the disbursement of funds as the department needs to ensure that the funds are paid into the right account and to the right people.”
“The department is trying its level best to ensure that it provides payment to qualifying ECD programmes, but it is difficult as the department goes at the pace of the co-operation of ECDs. The majority of ECD programmes are coming out now, although not all, which poses a challenge as we are nearing the end of the financial year. Due to the stated reason, there is a likelihood that not all qualified ECD programmes will be paid during this financial year. However, the department is engaging the National Treasury for possible rollovers," said Oliphant.
Weekend Argus