|
Urgent Request for Intervention in North West |
|
|
 Dear Ms Civil Legodu
As a collective of North West Non-Profit Organisations (NPOs), we are very concerned that the planned meeting discussing the current crisis in funding situation in the North West on 23 July 2010 did not occur.
We were relying on this meeting to receive critical feedback on the outcomes of the emergency meeting held on 3 May 2010 with you, the province and other role-players, and the undertaking given by Mr. Malaka at that meeting to address the crisis. We were not informed that the 23 July meeting would not occur or given reasons for why it was cancelled.
As a result, the crisis of funding in social services is still occurring in the North West.
There are many Service Level Agreements (SLA) that are outstanding and which have not been presented to, or signed by, the NPOs. The Department undertook that this action would be completed by 15 May 2010. They also undertook that outstanding funding as well as forthcoming funding would be paid on a quarterly basis and in advance, and that this would be implemented by 30 May 2010.
The majority of organisations are now waiting for between four months and a year for overdue funding, regardless of whether the relevant SLAs have been signed.
As a result:
-
Organisations cannot employ relevant professionals to fulfil mandatory services.
-
Staff are paid late due to the absence of promised funding, resulting in high turnover and poorer service delivery.
-
Services at a grass roots level are being compromised due to lack of funding.
-
Organisations in Lichtenberg and Coligny have closed down terminating the critical services they provide to their communities.
-
Other organisations are at risk of following this same fate.
-
Everywhere in the province organisations cannot fund social work posts
without assured income from the Department. A quick assessment of
organisations in the North West indicated that there are approximately
14 vacant social work posts that cannot be filled if funding is not
forthcoming.
-
Despite this, organisations are being expected to extend services to
rural areas. Organisations would like to do this, but without additional
funding this is impossible.
-
Organisations are required to cover vast travel distances to deliver
services, but due to the current financial restraints have had to stop
this service.
-
The province is resource poor – there are limited children's homes, one
school of industries, one school for the deaf, one school for the
blind, there are no official places of safety, only one treatment
facility for substance abuse, no placement options for children with
disabilities, and insufficient community based centres for the aged.
This means that organisation's services in these areas are being
marginalised in an attempt to keep afloat.
Organisations have been asked to revise and resubmit service plans due
to changes in the business plan format and/or where submitted service
plans and the necessary financing attachments have gone missing during
Departmental processing. In the interim, critical services in terms of
the Children's Act (2005), the Mental Health Care Act (2002), the
Substance Abuse Act (2008), the Older Persons Act (2006), and the Social
Assistance Act (2004) are not being rendered efficiently and
effectively.
We request that you take this matter up at a national level as the
highest priority and urgently advise us of the outcome. Failing which,
we will be forced to institute legal action.
Trusting that you understand the seriousness of this situation and its
implications for mandatory service delivery, including the impact to
service delivery and the Constitutional Rights of social service users.
Regards
Concerned North West NPOs
(Letter composed at a meeting on 26 July 2010)
|
