Declaring war on hunger? Social development dialogue

A total of 2.8 million people go hungry in Gauteng, said co-founder of Union Against Hunger Mark Heywood at an engagement with the MEC for Social Development of Gauteng, Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko, on Thursday, 28 May.

Dr Busiso Moyo, postdoctoral researcher with the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security and Union Against Hunger secretariat member, said the Department of Social Development spent R340-million in the first quarter of the year. The department released funds for more than 1,100 non-profit organisations.

The department had a R1.9-billion budget for this financial year, Nkomo-Ralehoko said.

During the engagement, the non-governmental organisations noted several points:

• Communities cannot eat promises: the department has to act.
• Non-governmental organisations are the third leg of government, doing the work of social workers and the department.
• What are the plans to rectify hunger in the richest province in SA?
• Departments often return unused money to the Treasury.

“It is a sin,” Nkomo-Ralehoko said of returning unused money to the National Treasury, committing to not returning any money during her tenure at the department.

While at the Department of Health in her previous role, the Gauteng province underspent by R1.1-billion in the 2023/2024 period. Nkomo-Ralehoko explained that while developing two radiation bunkers at Chris Hani Baragwanth Hospital and George Mukhari Academic Hospital-Garankuwa, it took almost a year to resolve municipal rezoning issues, which delayed the R728-million being used for the construction.

She said she had improved the environment for 37 hospitals in Gauteng during her four years as MEC.

An NGO for each ward

Nkomo-Ralehoko said hunger was the result of the triple burden of poverty, inequality and unemployment.

“Hunger is not merely the absence of food, it is also a manifestation of economic exclusion, historical injustice and uneven access to opportunities and resources.”

She says she wants to go beyond food parcels to gardens, with the slogan “one community, one garden”.

There are 529 wards in Gauteng, and the MEC wants every single ward to have a non-profit organisation.

This is despite recent protests relating to funding delays, where NGOs called for the payment of all outstanding subsidies by the end of May; improved pay; a commitment to reform the contracting process; a public status update on the 2026/27 funding process; and a list of all organisations still awaiting decisions.

“The Gauteng Department of Social Development’s vision of ensuring that there is at least one functional NPO in every ward is informed by the need to strengthen cooperation and partnerships with communities in addressing poverty, hunger, inequality, unemployment and other social challenges at a local level,” Nkomo-Ralehoko told Daily Maverick.

She added that community-based organisations are the first point of contact for vulnerable residents and their presence allows for responsive, localised and coordinated social interventions, working with ward committees, municipalities and civil society.

“The department does not view this as an abdication of the responsibilities of the state, but rather as part of a developmental and collaborative model of governance in which government works together with communities and civil society to deepen service delivery and social support.”

She also said there should be one-stop multi-purpose centres where social services were integrated, being able to deal with gender-based violence, the issue of homelessness, hunger and other needs.

“I’m declaring war on hunger,” she said, asking for the help, expertise and social solidarity that non-governmental organisations had within their communities.

Tshepo Mantjé, national coordinator for the Real Reform for ECD movement and senior Early Childhood Development coordinator of the Equality Collective, approved of the analogy, stating that there needed to be a coordinated plan for the war on hunger.

SRD grant ‘not dignified’

She said transforming the SRD grant of R370 to a Basic Income Grant “caters for empowerment”, adding that the grant in its current form was “nothing”.

She said that those on grants should be linked with skills development and training, a sentiment President Cyril Ramaphosa first outlined during his State of the Nation Address.

“It’s not a dignified thing, R370, that’s why we need to have other plans of assisting people.”

Department of Agriculture’s role in food security

On Thursday, the Union Against Hunger also picketed outside the Department of Agriculture in Pretoria, as the National Food and Nutrition Security Plan from 2018 t0 2023 has lapsed. The union wants clarity and transparency on the members of the council, Heywood said, and to know what the role of the Department of Agriculture was in achieving food security.

“Food security is a problem of agriculture; it is their responsibility,” said Nkomo-Ralehoko.

Responding to Heywood’s comments on the lapsed National Food and Nutrition Security Plan, she said: “It’s not true what the team is saying, there’s even a masterplan in agriculture that also attributes to policy responsibility, so that’s why they had that summit that they had. They were gathering stakeholders, but unfortunately, I think they’ve been working alone in silos, but there are other departments that take responsibility for food security.”

“One clinic, one garden” was a joint venture between Gauteng Health and Wellness and the Department of Agriculture. The MEC said that the programme of food gardens had lapsed, but that she wanted to bring it back, alongside sustainable food parcels.

In response to the Union Against Hunger notice to picket and request to receive its memorandum at the Department of Agriculture, Minister John Steenhuisen said: “It is important to clarify that the Constitution does not assign responsibility for food security, nutrition, household food access and social protection to a single ministry.”

He added: “The mandate of the Department of Agriculture is primarily concerned with agricultural production, farmer support, biosecurity, agricultural markets and ensuring the stability and resilience of SA’s food production systems.”

He said matters of nutrition and social protection primarily fell under Social Development, Health, and Basic Education.

Which department leads the responsibility for ending hunger?

“We have different policy instruments across the departments in both national and provincial governments, and all have to work together to end the problem that we are having,” Nkomo-Ralehoko said.

She added that food security did fall under the Department of Social Development as a social issue.

Stolen food

Reports have revealed that hundreds of millions of rand have been mismanaged at the Department of Social Development, raising questions over the MEC’s commitment to tackling corruption.

Nkomo-Ralehoko said they issued a statement after they realised food had been stolen from a food bank and was being sold at a spaza shop. They opened a case against the official responsible.

She outlined that when she arrived, there had been no inventory or cameras. Now cameras were being installed. An outside company was now doing inventory for the food banks.

“I met with a Public Service Commission (PSC) executive to discover the problem of the cases that we have as a department. There are old cases that are there, some are either forensic, some were with the Public Service Commission, because I want to act on those cases. If you have done something, I believe that there must be consequences. So I’m going to strengthen consequence management.”

The Public Service Commission is an independent Chapter 10 constitutional institution mandated to promote, investigate, monitor and evaluate public administration.

Nkomo-Ralehoko said she was opening cases that were supposed to have been opened 10 years ago.

Action plan

Mantjé outlined an action plan for the non-governmental sector and the Department of Social Development in Gauteng:

• A colloquium on food systems with the Department of Social Development.
• They hope to develop a task team, which would prioritise direct support and identifying needs.
• To strengthen non-profit organisations and map the landscape.
• The department needs to do research.
• Engage the technical task team to report back on the progress of meeting.

She committed to meeting monthly, with a technical team to meet every fortnight, and specified that the meetings would not be run by the department – but said it would participate. DM