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A written parliamentary reply (view here) to the DA has revealed that KwaZulu-Natal’s (KZN) Department of Social Development (DSD) paid R14million to officials suspended after being implicated in the province’s so-called Covid-19 blanket saga.

This is R14million worth of taxpayers’ money. The DA regards it a grave injustice that it was paid to individuals sitting at home, doing nothing.

The DA has always maintained that officials implicated in this saga should have been suspended without pay. We have also stated that they should be criminally charged given that they allegedly stole from the poor.

KZN’s DSD is already struggling on every front, with inadequate funding to deal with the vast number of social ills plaguing our province. This R14million could have been used to:

· Establish more Gender-based Violence (GBV) shelters in KZN as this scourge remains at an all-time high;
· Provide more funding to the many KZN NGOs facing closure and struggling to pay utility bills;
· Provide more SAPS victim-friendly rooms and create safe spaces for vulnerable and abandoned children;
· Provide more social workers to assist with psycho-social issues within our communities and;
· Fix or buy more vehicles for social workers so that they can provide services to our communities.

It is clear that this ANC-run government cannot even fix the basics. Voters need to remember this when they go to the polls in 2024.

Issued by Mmabatho Tembe, MPL - DA KZN Spokesperson on Social Development