Eastern Cape Treasury concedes fight against hunger is failing, calls for revamped strategy

Head of the Eastern Cape Treasury Daluhlanga Majeke told the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) on Friday that the province needs an improved model to fight hunger.

He said the provincial and national government’s “piecemeal approach” to hunger means the problem will not be solved. 

He pointed out, for example, that money transferred to schools under the National School Nutrition Fund could be spent on buying fresh produce from local farmers rather than at a local supermarket or spaza shop, boosting local agriculture. The national Department of Education spends close to R2-billion a year on the school feeding programme in the province - which has been hailed as one of the most successful programmes to fight hunger in the province.

Referring to the OR Tambo District, one of the province’s poorest areas, Majeke said: “Just look at OR Tambo. Nothing is being plowed here.” 

This is in line with what Premier Oscar Mabuyane said on Friday morning when he gave evidence before the commission.

“I told [the Department of] Agriculture, where there are community gardens, we must go all out. People take their grants and run to town instead. Also, people don’t have cattle to plough the land any more, so we are trying to figure out how to help people to plow their gardens.”

Majeke said for this year R9.057-million was budgeted for food parcels, of which R1.2-million has been spent so far. The current financial year is now in its second quarter.

Mabuyane said on Friday that 41% of residents in the Eastern Cape are living under the poverty line.

In 2023, the SAHRC found there was systemic hunger in Eastern Cape and raised concerns about a lack of interdepartmental coordination, early childhood nutritional programmes and failing food security initiatives.

Commissioner Philile Ntuli, chairing the hearings, also said they were very concerned about the provincial response since then that seems to be slow and fragmented, and inadequate. 

Last week statistics presented to the SAHRC by Dr Sandile Buthelezi, the director-general of the national Department of Health, revealed that 973 children had died from severe acute malnutrition in facilities around the country in the past 18 months.

Of these, 177 were in the Eastern Cape. This is the province with the third-highest mortality numbers for severe acute malnutrition, after KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo. 

The provincial head of the SAHRC, Dr Eileen Carter, said it looks like the province will likely see an increase in deaths with malnutrition as the underlying cause in the current financial year as 70 deaths were already recorded in the first quarter. With 116 deaths recorded in the 2022/23 financial year, no real progress has been made in the province that recorded 107 deaths in the previous financial year.

The statistics has shown an increase of deaths in Nelson Mandela Bay, which was worrying as it has now overtaken some of the rural districts where hunger and malnutrition were rife in the past.

Read more: Urgent call for accountability as nearly 1,000 children die from severe malnutrition in SA

Nadrajh Govender, the province’s director of budget management, said the provincial Department of Social Development had been guilty of underspending in the past, especially on the programme to provide sanitary pads to young women, but in the past financial years they have spent all their money on food parcels. He said where the department got stuck was in 2021/22 when it had failed to spend R134-million provided to it as part of a social relief grant. At the time, they had surrendered R67-million to the Treasury that remained unspent.

Read more: ‘We need help’ — Department of Social Development admits to acute Eastern Cape hunger crisis

An answer provided by MEC Bukiwe Fanta to the Eastern Cape legislature has highlighted the slow rollout of food parcels in the province during some months - likely due to budgetary constraints. Only nine food parcels were rolled out between January and March this year, which is the end of the financial year. 

According to her answer, the department received R6.158-million for social relief of distress in the previous financial year (2024/25) and provided 2,985 food parcels throughout the province.

As part of the social relief of distress programme, the department also runs community nutrition centres for destitute families and a programme for household food gardens.

Fanta said an increase in budget could assist, but also said the province needs to establish food banks. DM