Wastage of funds on legal fees an outrage

IT is indeed an unhappy state of affairs when, in a province beset by such high levels of poverty, hunger and deprivation, the provincial department of social development spends millions of rands a year defending law suits brought by people seeking to secure pensions and other social grants.

Ironically, that information was brought into the public domain on the same day the Nelson Mandela Metro announced plans to remove hawkers and beggars from busy intersections, confining them to the pavement in the interests of their own and others’ safety.

There is a compelling link between the two. Would the beggars, many of them street children or orphans, be there if the department was fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities and obligations?

Social Development MEC Neo Moerane-Mamase alleges that at least 50 per cent of the cases brought to court involve lawyers acting on behalf of people who are already receiving grants, adding that the State is being “defrauded” by these legal practitioners. If that is the case, then there are legal remedies.

What cannot be denied is that an awful lot of money that could be profitably used to better the lives of the poor is being wasted on civil cases that would be a rarity if the department operated efficiently.

It is not only the money being spent needlessly on legal cases that is of concern. By the end of the third quarter of the current financial year, the department had spent just R1,4-million out of R94-million appropriated for emergency food relief.

Further, it is evident that by the end of the financial year it will also not have spent money granted conditionally by national government for the extension of the child support grant.

Once again, the department will have failed to carry out its constitutional mandate.

Taken together it is all too clear that neither the political will nor the administrative capacity exist in the provincial department of social development to ensure that the poor are provided with the basics for survival.

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Nature’s fury: Plan carefully

THE call this week by metro safety and security committee chairman Mahlubi Biyana for the municipal council to make financial provision for natural disasters is right on the button, albeit belated.

After the recent tsunami disaster in Asia and Africa which claimed almost 300 000 lives, no region dare take the forces of nature for granted.

As we reported yesterday, Biyana said the metro should make provision for at least R20-million for emergencies resulting from natural disasters.

His point of reference was the recent deluge and gale-force winds which blew down houses and destroyed roads in the metro, rendering more than 300 people homeless.

Biyana urged the council not to rely on Bhisho for assistance, but to be proactive.

We support Biyana’s call, but perhaps he should urge the council to go one better – by setting up a body consisting of experts to monitor potential natural disasters, so as to be in a position to offer early warnings and thereby hopefully minimise potential damage.

Without such an early warning mechanism in place, it is relatively pointless to budget R20-million or any other amount for repairing damage to infrastructure, when much of that damage could have been avoided with proper planning.

We have the expertise in the metro.

The council has only to identify and utilise it properly and effectively.