1. The Minority Front welcomes the ECD Conditional grant allocated to KZN to expand ECD subsidy to poor children in existing ECD centres, as well as, improve conditionally registered facilities to meet basic requirements for full registration.
2. Therefore, HON. MEC what we need is a Plan and targeted outputs of the subsidy, that is, how many existing conditionally registered partial care facilities providing ECD, finally attain full registration 2017/2018.
3. HON. Chairperson, I will now focus on some realities of exploitation of the elderly such as, grantees who are renting. Recently DSD Phoenix, closed down a pastor’s housing facility on church premises, citing that it was inhabitable. This therefore sets a precedence of intervention, but in Chatsworth grantees who complain about rental facilities get no help. No social worker from DSD or DAFTA helps. There must be a consistent approach by DSD, HON. Members.
4. HON. MEC, we need to prevent this exploitation. The department needs to bring about awareness amongst landlords about humane rental housing conditions as part of Community Mobilization in Programme 5 of Development and Research.
5. HON. MEC, our constituency offices receive many complaints about the attitude of district surgeons, and the fact that they are not examined and their reports not read eg. in Chatsworth and Phoenix but their grant application is denied. Please can we have a report on what the Department plans to do in this regard, in all areas because this is a general complaint.
6. As an eg. for the period January to April 2017, the Minority Front’s Phoenix Constituency offices, dealt with grants as follows: turned down (6); reconsideration (7); appeals (5); illegal deductions (23); 1^st time applications (8); stopped grant (1) and cancel green card from moneyline (4). This HON. House, Hon. MEC needs a report on District Surgeons with respect to these issues and what challenges the Department has and how these will be addressed.
7. The Minority Front supports this budget of R3.041 billion.

Thank You.

Shameen Thakur- Rajbansi

Minority Front  MPL KZN Legislature