MyPE

Community Business Directory, Event Listings, News and Views from Gqeberha, Nelson Mandela Bay

NMB Coalition fails to pay millions to welfare organisations

By

Dear Editor

More than 200 welfare and charitable organisations providing care to the most-needy residents of Nelson Mandela Bay are finding it difficult to provide assistance because of the municipality’s inability to pay over millions of rands due to them.

The municipality’s financial assistance to external organisations is a fund meant to assist NGOs and other worthy causes in the Metro. These organisations have been waiting since last year for the R6 million that should’ve been paid to them already.

The meeting to approve these funds convened on 30 November 2023, but the item still needs to go to the mayoral committee and the Budget and Treasury committee before it must be approved at a full council meeting.

It is highly unlikely that the funds will be paid out in this financial year as the next Budget and Treasury committee meeting is only scheduled for March 2024.

The impact of the delayed payment of funds to local welfare organisations is massive. I recently visited one such organisation that supports 2500 to 3000 persons with disabilities and their families per year. This support is provided in the form of social work services, skills development accredited learnerships, food parcels, recruitment and permanent employment as well as wheelchair donations within disadvantaged communities. Due to the non-payment of funds this organisation struggles to provide much-needed charitable assistance to our disadvantaged disabled residents.

I am in the process of engaging with the MMC for Budget and Treasury, Cllr Buyelwa Mafaya, to try and schedule a special meeting of the Budget and Treasury committee to facilitate the approval of this item so that payment can be fast-tracked.

While the failed ANC/EFF/NA/PA coalition government drags its feet and tries to desperately cling to power our residents are being subjected to untold suffering because the small NGOs and community-based organisations, providing them with care and education services, are struggling to keep their heads above water.

This coalition government is actively sabotaging these organisations and the communities they serve.

The DA will fight to rescue the organisations that are providing care to the vulnerable residents of our Metro. Together we can get Nelson Mandela Bay working again.

Regards

Dr Malcolm Figg
DA NMB Spokesperson for Budget and Treasury

The following two tabs change content below.

Port Elizabethan

This author is a 'catch-all' for occasional articles and letters written to MyPE. The Author of each article can be found in the signature at the bottom of each individual article.