Application for ECD relief funding must be accessible and transparent

10 February 2021

While the Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes the much-anticipated and desperately needed Early Childhood Development Employment Stimulus Relief Fund (ECD-ESRF), we call on the Department of Social Development to incorporate an additional process to accept physical applications and supporting documents from ECDs who are unable to submit online.

While we welcome priority for ECDs in poor wards as defined by the Multiple Poverty Index, we are concerned that the department will only be accepting online applications and all supporting documents must also be uploaded electronically. Yet, many in the sector do not have access to internet and/or data.

We will also submit a series of written parliamentary questions to Minister Lindiwe Zulu requesting a full breakdown of:

How the ECD-ESRF has and will be spent;

How provincial funding allocations were determined; and

What became of the R1.3 billion which was originally earmarked for the ECD sector in July 2020.

According to the Presidential Employment Stimulus document the Department of Social Development (DSD) was to receive R588.8 million of which R380 million was for Covid-19 temporary employment protection support scheme; R116.3 million for Covid-19 compliance support; R76 million to sustain social workers and R16.5 million for mass registration.

R496 million has now been received from National Treasury, to assist ECD programmes and services that have been impacted by the Covid pandemic.

At R4 470 per ECD staff member approximately 110 960 ECD staff members should receive this relief out of the approximately 176 000 ECD direct workforce. The DSD has not committed to a timeline as to when this much needed relief will be paid after the closing date of 19 February 2021, but as the DA we will keep applying the pressure for timeous payment.

The ECD sector was irrationally closed by the government during the hard lockdown from 27 March 2020 until a court judgement instructed the safe reopening on 6 July 2020. Government must take accountability for the many permanent ECD closures and loss of jobs in the sector and now have to make the application process as accessible as possible.

The DA encourages all those in the ECD sector to apply for relief funding at govchat.app. For more information visit dsd.gov.za.

Issued by Alexandra Abrahams,DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Social Development, 10 February 2021