Unless more money is forthcoming from government, the National Peace Secretariat is unlikely to survive, writes Stefaans Brummer
THE National Peace Secretariat and its regional and local peace committees, widely credited with dampening political violence countrywide, are fighting for their survival with a budgetary shortfall of at least R35-million.
The financial woes of the peace structures stem largely from election-related expenditure, representing up to half the shortfall.
No clarity exists on whether, or to what extent, the government will accede to a request by the Peace Secretariat to bail it out, but Deputy Home Affairs Minister Penuell Maduna said during the department’s budget debate in parliament this week that the role of the peace structures “in combating violence cannot be overemphasised”.
However, he kept mum on the Peace Secretariat’s request for additional funding. A ministerial spokesman said negotiations were still under way. Home Affairs has provided most of the Peace Secretariat budget since taking over the responsibility from the Department of Justice.
Spokesmen for the secratariat and peace committees said this week if their budget was not supplemented by the state there would be drastic changes to the ability of the committees to deliver. Some said they might have to close shop within months. Already the regional and local peace committees have been told to cut their budgets and many projects have been put on ice.
Professor Jaap Durand, chairman of the Western Cape Regional Peace Committee, said his committee had been informed if there was no additional allocation from the state there “will be no budget after September or October”. He understood that to apply to structures countrywide. “It seems like the finances are drying up. The personnel are strongly demoralised as they do not know what will happen the next day. There are people resigning and many are looking for other jobs.”
Peace Secretariat spokesman Hannes Siebert said staff were “resigning like flies”, but the value of peace structures had not diminished “as we are needed, especially now, to facilitate the process of democratisation”.
Potential violence during next year’s local government elections, the peace commmittees’ involvement in police-community relations and residual tension on the ground meant the committees had a role to play. “If you take this body away all that will remain is Law and Order, and I hope the government doesn’t want to return to those days,” he said.
Peace Secretariat executive director Nick Grobler said about R34- million had been allocated to the secretariat and its structures in the 1994/5 Home Affairs budget, but that between R13-million and R18- million had been spent on the elections, compared to the normal R5- million during a comparable two-month period.
Other factors, such as the need to establish structures in the newly- reincorporated TBVC-states, had contributed to the shortfall.
Grobler said the secretariat had held discussions with a variety of politicians to inform them of the activities of the peace structures, and that the government had been asked for an additional R35-million this year. The future of the peace structures now depended on “what the government decides the structures should do and how they should function”.
Secretariat chairman Dr Antonie Gildenhuys said if more money was not forthcoming, “we will have to cut back. We have already started cutting, as you never get everything you ask for.”
Bitterness lingers among some sources about a large part of the Peace Secretariat’s election expenses they said was expected to have been reimbursed by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), but never was.
Grobler confirmed there had been a request by the IEC immediately before the election for the Peace Secretariat to extend their normal duties and act in support of the IEC in a monitoring capacity. At a meeting soon after, Peace Secretariat officials had asked the IEC to reimburse expenses roughly projected at R10-million, but the IEC told them they had to look at the Peace Secretariat’s own sources of funding, he said.
IEC spokesman Paul Bell confirmed compensation had been discussed, but said the two bodies had “resolved” that the Peace Secretariat would appeal to its own sources of funding.
Grobler said no separate amount was being sought from the state to cover expenses in support of the IEC, and only the lump sum of R35- million was being sought to cover the shortfall.