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 within rural areas.

Parents are being tortured by the cries of their hungry children, as they resort to eating grass and sticks.

Today, I challenge Premier Oscar Mabuyane to spell out the progress regarding the implementation of the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) recommendations following their report last year.

The latest statistics for this financial year show that 21,8% of adults, more than one of every five adults, and 28% of children, or roughly three of every ten children, in the OR Tambo district live below the poverty line.

As the fourth most populous district in the country, with an estimated 1,5 million people, even a conservative estimate places over 300,000 people below the poverty line.

Social Development MEC Bukiwe Fanta, in response to parliamentary questions from the DA, revealed 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 eight months into the financial year. The Department only provided 1,931 food parcels to the entire province.

Last year 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.

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 1087 children suffered from malnutrition in the same period.

The SAHRC’s calls for the hunger crisis to be declared a disaster, however, appear to have fallen on deaf ANC ears. The Department has cut the budget allocation for food parcels by close to one million rands for the 2023/24 financial year, down from R 6.1 million to R5.2 million.

The Democratic Alliance has been calling for the Child Support Grant, which has not kept pace with inflation, to be increased above the food poverty line. The SAHRC has now echoed this call.

We also support 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 programs.

I will be raising this issue as a matter of urgency in the Eastern cape Legislature during the next plenary sitting.

The DA will continue to fight for strengthened oversight mechanisms within the Eastern Cape Legislature, to hold government departments accountable for addressing child malnutrition and ensuring the effective use of allocated resources.

It is only a DA-led government that can rescue the Eastern Cape and ensure that the poor receive the assistance they so desperately need.

ENGLISH