Up to five million needy children qualifying for government’s monthly cash grants still go hungry — despite over R1-billion idling in government coffers — because they have not yet applied, the Social Development Ministry said.
Social Development representative Mbulelo Musi said on Wednesday that the situation had prompted government to embark on an awareness campaign to get the public to register those children who should be receiving child support, foster care and disability grants.
Impoverished children are entitled to a monthly grant of R130 as part of government’s anti-poverty policy to reverse the legacy of the old social grant regulations.
”Approximately six million children living in poverty are qualifying for these grants, but research shows that only about one million of them are currently benefiting.
”This leaves us with a backlog of up to five million who have yet to register in terms of grant requirements. We cannot afford to have children living in poverty while there are means of redressing the problem,” he said.
The department, which aims to have at least three million recipients properly registered by 2005, will engage the media, trade unions, churches and parliamentarians to propagate the campaign among the public.
Musi said the issue was also mentioned in the four-day conference on co-ordinating action for children living with HIV/Aids, which was hosted by the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund and attended by several African countries and ended on Friday. – Sapa