Students protest outside Parliament in Cape Town. Photo by David Harrison
Three years after the rape and murder of University of Cape Town student Uyinene Mrwetyana shocked the nation, there is no evidence the government has ever allocated or spent, the R1.6-billion that was supposed to address the “other pandemic” of gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF).
At the end of Women’s Month, it is clear the government must account for the multibillion-rand pledges it has made to address the violence. Baffled researchers have found no trace of the promised funds.
On 18 September 2019, President Cyril Ramaphosa told a joint sitting of the national assembly and the national council of provinces the cabinet had resolved to direct R1.1-billion in additional funding “in this financial year” to a comprehensive response to gender-based violence and femicide. The special parliamentary session on gender-based violence and femicide was convened after four weeks of national outrage following Mrwetyana’s death. In parliament on 31 October 2019, Ramaphosa said an additional R500-million had been allocated.
In his speech to the joint sitting of parliament, Ramaphosa said: “Given the urgency of the situation, we have developed an emergency response action plan [ERAP], which will be implemented over the next six months.”
The R1.6-billion plan had five areas: access to justice (R394.8-million); changing norms and behaviours (R179.2-million); urgently responding to victims and survivors of gender-based violence and femicide (R517-million); strengthening accountability and architecture to respond to gender-based violence and femicide (R20-million) and interventions that facilitate economic opportunities for women, which had no budget.
But there was no mention of the R1.6-billion allocation in the treasury’s subsequent national budgets and medium-term budget policy statements. In subsequent national budgets, the treasury allocated R15-million to the establishment of a gender-based violence and femicide council, which was rolled over each year. The council has still not been set up three years after the government agreed to do so.
In August 2018, thousands of women and gender non-conforming people marched to the Union Buildings under the banner of the #TotalShutdown movement to protest against the scourge of gender-based violence and femicide.
In November 2018, Ramaphosa convened a summit on gender-based violence and femicide. It agreed to set up an interim steering committee, which would give way to a multi-stakeholder council within six months, and to develop a National Strategic Plan on gender-based violence and femicide.
After months of requesting information, the presidency sent me a nonsensical spreadsheet, after conducting its own research.
The spreadsheet said the government had spent R1.1-billion on the emergency response action plan. The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) had spent R889-million. This was impossible because it would have accounted for more than 20% of the NPA’s budget.
There was no mention of the spending in the NPA’s subsequent annual reports. The NPA’s spokesperson refused to comment.
The presidency’s spreadsheet said the police had spent R224-million buying cars and cellphones, presumably to fight gender-based violence and femicide. I sent the spreadsheet to a senior treasury official to review. She said: “The problem with gender budgeting is that we do not have a code for such spending in our … software system.”
Three reports have tried to locate the mystery gender-based violence and femicide allocation. The Budget Justice Coalition, which has made numerous submissions to parliament about the “missing” R1.6-billion, said: “The BJC is seriously concerned that the budget makes no mention of allocating resources to what the president has referred to as another pandemic of violence against women and children.
“In May, the much-anticipated National Plan on GBVF was finalised, but without any budget information.
“Without a budget, the plan cannot achieve the deep changes needed. If this plan is not adequately and reliably funded it will not be worth the paper that it is written on.
“With this budget, we again see the pattern of failure to allocate towards initiatives to intervene in this second pandemic. Since the late 1990s, there has generally been a gender-responsive budgeting recession. Gender-responsive budgeting must be adopted into our fiscal frameworks.”
The Commission For Gender Equality (CGE) conducted an audit of the emergency response action plan’s 39 interventions with 81 targets that were supposed to be implemented by 22 government departments and other state entities between October 2019 and March 2020. They spent a year trying to locate the allocation and projects.
The Commission For Gender Equality researchers encountered resistance and lack of cooperation from most government departments, which failed to provide complete, accurate and reliable information.
“In many instances, officials were not willing to share such information,” the report said. The Commission For Gender Equality’s researchers were allegedly kicked out of meetings at the presidency after they started asking questions.
Commission For Gender Equality spokesperson Javu Baloyi said: “There was no accountability — from the presidency to the other departments that were supposed to implement the plan.
“It was not clear who was responsible for what. Nobody took responsibility for anything. If you asked one department for information, they would send you to another department. There was no dedicated structure to coordinate the emergency response action plan. There was no implementation plan.
“On the R1.6-billion, we could not determine where it went or what it was spent on. It appears no lessons have been learnt.”
The CGE report found that only 17 targets (21.3% of the 81 targets) were achieved and 12 (15%) were partially achieved.
A Wise4Afrika gender-based violence and femicide report card gave the government a grade of F for the implementation of the emergency response action plan, with total inaction on most interventions.
“Overall the implementation of the ERAP failed dismally. The lack of strong leadership and accountability can be blamed for the many government departments that failed to perform, or even submit, a single report.
“The apathy in implementation stands in great contrast to the ambitious announcements made by the president, thus leading to unmet promises and undertakings. Unfortunately, this apathy reduces the president’s promises to lip service as the scourge rages on as a parallel pandemic.”
At the launch of a R128-million private-sector gender-based violence and femicide fund held on 4 February last year, Ramaphosa said: “We have allocated nearly R21-billion over the three years of the medium-term expenditure framework to support the pillars of the National Strategic Plan.”
More than a year later, I have not seen any mention of such spending in the 250-page budget review or the 956-page Estimates of National Expenditure publications. I am still trying to understand another spreadsheet the presidency has sent me.
Duma Gqubule is a financial journalist, analyst, researcher and adviser on issues of economic development and transformation.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.
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