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The process of distributing food parcels in the Eastern Cape has been marred by allegations of corruption, while thousands wait for food relief in the face of privations cause by the Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown.
In the province’s two metros, Buffalo City and Nelson Mandela Bay, food parcels and food vouchers have allegedly been diverted away from deserving beneficiaries.
This week, a Buffalo City metro DA councillor, Anathi Majeke, wrote to city manager Andile Sihlahla, requesting a full report on the metro’s R30 million food voucher system.
This comes after the metro introduced the voucher system instead of food parcels, which had proven disastrous in many parts of the country.
The DA said that, although its caucus initially welcomed the voucher relief system, it had been poorly planned and processes were changed on a daily basis.
The opposition party wanted the city manager to provide the report at the council’s next ordinary meeting.
Majeke said: “Over the past few days, disturbing stories have emerged about food relief vouchers allegedly being plundered.
The process has been marred by alleged irregularities as some ANC ward councillors have sought to politicise this process. These councillors are allegedly ignoring deserving residents in the interest of political allegiances.”
Meanwhile, residents of Airport Valley in Walmer township in Port Elizabeth are accusing an ANC ward councillor of distributing food parcels to his friends and cadres.
Zama Mona, chairperson of the Airport Valley Committee, said more than 2 000 beneficiaries in the community had not received food parcels.
He alleged that the ANC councillor had given parcels to people whose names were on a list drawn up last year, which is unrelated to the list of beneficiaries who qualified for food parcels under the Covid-19 relief programme.
Gcobani Maswana, provincial spokesperson for the social development department, said the budget for food parcels could not accommodate a disaster situation. Because the majority of people who would normally have been working were locked in their homes, a large number of people needed social relief.
He said that, according to Stats SA, the department was supposed to support 264 000 households, but the budget could only cover 40 000 households. There was R50 million available for the programme – R45 million from the SA Social Security Agency and R5 million from the department of social development.
Maswana said that, in some cases, councillors had not had enough food parcels to distribute to every household.
“We cannot reject complaints from the people when they say they have not received their food parcels, but we need to understand that councillors are on the frontlines in our communities and we should not just blame them for everything.
We are not saying councillors are not doing wrong things, but we must also take into account that the food parcels were not enough,” Maswana said.
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