‘THERE IS NO MONEY TO HIRE SOCIAL WORKERS’

Social Development Department drops plan to absorb unemployed workers in KZN.

The KwaZulu-Natal Social Development Department will not be able to absorb the province’s unemployed social workers, who have recently been staging protests over the provincial government’s failure to employ them.

According to the representatives of KZN’s around 2000 unemployed social workers, some of the qualified social workers have been out of work since graduating as far back as 2013. Speaking during the tabling of the department’s annual budget before members of the social development portfolio committee in the KZN Legislature on Tuesday, the department’s chief financial officer (CFO), Senzo Zungu, said while the department has some vacancies, it was unable to fill them due to a lack of funds.

“The department is unable to create new jobs because of the budget cuts,” he said.

The department, which has close to 6 000 employees, was dealt a major blow last year when the national government resolved not to finance the civil servants’ 7,5% salary increase, creating a situation in which the department had to use its budget to cater for the salary increase. As a result of the 7,5% civil servants’ salary increase, the provincial Social Development Department’s annual bill has been pushed to R1,8 billion — representing more than 50% of the department’s entire R3 billion annual budget. The department’s financial woes took a turn for the worse when the National Treasury reduced allocations to provinces due to a shortage of funds.

Zungu told the members of KZN Legislature’s portfolio committee on social development that the department’s unstable financial situation has also resulted in it being unable to pay service providers within the stipulated 30 days.

“At one point, it took the department three months to pay service providers. However, things have since improved and it now takes the department a month to pay service providers,” he said.

The budget cuts also resulted in the department being unable to subsidise NPOs. Due to the department’s poor financial state, it also had to discontinue its bursary scheme for students wanting to pursue social work studies. For the department to stabilise, Zungu said, the current annual budget of around R3 billion needed to be increased by about R1 billion. KZN Social Development head Nelisiwe Vilakazi said the future looked bright despite the department’s current financial challenges.

“We are also confident that going forward, social workers would be employed,” she said.

While Social Development MEC Mbali Shinga said she understood that the role of the committee members was to hold the department accountable, she nonetheless appealed for the MPLs’ support.

“For the department to overcome some of its challenges, particularly those related to the shortage of resources, we really need the support of the committee,” she said.

The department’s budget was approved by the committee after MPLs aligned to the government of provincial unity (GPU), which includes the IFP, ANC, DA and NFP, voted in favour of the budget. While uMkhonto we Sizwe Party (MKP) MPLs in the committee rejected the department’s budget, they could not block the approval of the budget as they were outnumbered by the GPU MPLs.

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The article was originally written by The Witness.

Source: https://witness.co.za/news/2024/08/07/there-is-no-money-to-employ-social-workers/#:~:text=The%20KwaZulu%2DNatal%20Social%20Development,government’s%20failure%20to%20employ%20them.