The Treasury has proposed alternatives to fight hunger and reduce malnutrition statistics in the Eastern Cape after the Human Rights Commission (HRC), two years ago, found that child malnutrition in the region should be declared a state of disaster and treated accordingly, reports Daily Maverick.
Last week, while testifying under a subpoena at the HRC’s hearing into the issue, Treasury director-general Duncan Pieterse proposed alternatives, as his department couldn’t afford a roll-out of higher child support grants and the expansion of the national school feeding scheme.
Previously, the commission had recommended Treasury consider increasing the child support grant to above the food poverty line; prioritise children under school-going age for this increase, and extend the National School Nutrition Programme to early childhood development (ECD) centres.
By September this year, it became clear that many of the recommendations, including those addressed to the Treasury, were not being complied with, even though in some cases a good-faith effort had been made.
Officials subpoenaed
The HRC then subpoenaed a number of high-ranking officials, including the heads of the National Department of Health (NDoH) and the Eastern Cape Department of Health, Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane and officials from Social Development and Education, to explain whether their recommendations were being implemented and if not, to provide reasons.
At this hearing, head of the NDoH Sandile Buthelezi provided the commission with devastating statistics showing that 973 children under five with severe acute malnutrition had died in public facilities countrywide.
This was only nominally lower than the statistics which prompted the HRC’s first call for a concerted approach to fight hunger in the country.
Underscoring the extent of the hunger crisis, Buthelezi said the figures excluded children dying at home or in private hospitals. He said the Health Department was often the last resort for any help for the children.
“We are meeting in solemn and urgent circumstances,” HRC commissioner Philile Ntuli said at the previous hearing. “This is not a symbolic hearing. We want to secure clear accountability… This is not a natural disaster. It is a failure of the state.”
The Treasury’s Pieterse, who could not attend the September hearings, said last Wednesday that the department had alternative proposals to those made by the HRC.
First, he said, work was already being done to address social grant fraud with the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa).
“Earlier this year, we started attaching conditions to their allocations for them to tighten social grant beneficiary verification.”
Anecdotal evidence, and research, had uncovered a “significant increase in social grant fraud”.
“As a result of increased verification, we have identified significant savings from these efforts,” he said, adding that verification of 55 000 social grant beneficiaries found that between 3 000 and 4 000 were ineligible.
He said that at the mid-term budget, the government would further announce the closure of low-priority and ineffective government programmes.
Income threshold
Another Treasury proposal was to review the income threshold for the child support grant. Currently, a single parent earning less than R67 200 a year, or a couple earning less than R134 400, qualifies for the grant.
Pieterse said if these thresholds were raised, meaning fewer parents or caregivers qualified for the child support grant, the grant could be increased.
“This way we will target children who are absolutely in need,” he said.
He noted that better registration and tracking of social grant beneficiaries would also help to eradicate “double dipping” and disqualify ineligible recipients.
The child support grant, at R560 a month, is under the food poverty line. To reach the food poverty line, at R796 a month, will cost the country R31bn a year to cover 12m children.
“If we were to make a decision like this… we do not have the revenue, and we are not able to borrow for that additional funding, what are the areas where we can get those funds from?” he asked.
Early childhood subsidy
Similarly, the logistics costs to extend the school nutrition programme to ECD centres would be prohibitively expensive. He said the Treasury believed that increasing the early childhood subsidy would be a more efficient way to extend nutritional support to ECD centres.
The total cost of expanding the school nutrition programme to the ECD sector would cost R3bn over the medium term, at about R4 a child.
Instead, Pieterse suggested the ECD subsidy should be increased as this would reduce barriers of access to the sector and boost nutrition at the creches.
“It is the most effective way to get nutrition to the poorest and most vulnerable children.”
Increasing the ECD subsidy to R24, as was announced in the 2025 Budget, per child per day, was a significant step.
He said this increase, which cost the country R10bn, had been proposed by the Treasury and accepted by Parliament and the Cabinet.
Of this subsidy, Pieterse said, the conditional grant framework required that 40% be spent on nutrition. “This represents a R4bn allocation to nutrition,” he added.
Pieterse said the Treasury was responsible for the budget process, but the decision on where resources were allocated was made by the Cabinet.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
SAHRC gives government deadline to address Eastern Cape malnutrition crisis
Social grants not winning the child malnutrition battle in South Africa
‘Rage and grief’ as children die of malnutrition, while govt punts NHI that’s likely to fail
Nelson Mandela Bay: Acute malnutrition cases increase while R67m distress grant remains unspent