A desperate Soweto family is still waiting for foster-care grants they say they applied for in 1995, despite the government’s drive to sign up millions more for welfare grants.
Kedibone (15) and Clive Mabaso (10) are in dire need of the money. They live with their 72-year-old grandmother Mabel Mphuthu. She can barely make ends meet with her R620 pension, which must support her and her four grandchildren.
Mphuthu says she first approached the Gauteng Department of Social Services and Population Development in 1995 after her daughter Sibongile Mabaso died and left four children in her care. “When I went to the department I was told to go back home because I was sick. They said they’d send somebody to help me.
“I was told from the beginning that only two of the four kids would qualify for a grant because the older ones have a father who could help. I’ve gone back and forth to the department … but I’ve received no help.”
Meanwhile, Deputy President Jacob Zuma, Cabinet ministers and MECs have been campaigning to register children for welfare grants. The government is trying to register a million people a year who qualify for grants over the next few years.
This year 200 000 potential recipients were targeted in Gauteng alone. The campaign has been so successful that 300 000 applicants were registered for various welfare grants. But none of this has helped Mphuthu’s family.
Mbela Phetlhe, deputy director of communications for the Gauteng Department of Social Services and Population Development, says Mphuthu contacted the department in 1998 when she applied for a foster-care grant. “Mphuthu was in and out of hospital and we closed the case because she was never at home.”
He says a social worker suggested that Peggy Phiri, the children’s aunt, take over the fostering duties. “The state has to be sure that whoever is fostering the children is well and healthy. Mphuthu has a heart problem.” Phiri refused to foster the two children, says Phetlhe.
“There is no truth in what they are saying. I was never asked to foster the kids. I would never refuse to foster my sister’s kids,” says Phiri.
Meanwhile, the Alliance for Children’s Entitlement to Social Security (Acess) says a study in 1999 found that 75,8% of South African children lived below a poverty line of R400 a month. Figures ranged from 88,4% of the children in the Eastern Cape to 55,4% in Gauteng.
“In our area there are many children suffering, including us,” a girl from Cape Town’s Samora Machel informal settlement told a public hearing the alliance organised in February. “We go to school every morning on an empty stomach. Other children choose not to go to school and stand at the side of the road begging for money.”
A 15-year-old boy from Limpopo told Acess earlier this year: “The biggest problem is food. Sometimes we end up not getting any food and I don’t know what to do. The other problem is to have school shoes.”
Patricia Martin, the group’s national coordinator, says many children fall through the gaps that child-support grants should cover. Poor children older than six are not catered for, nor are children with moderate disabilities or those infected with HIV.
The care-dependency grant caters for severely disabled children, which may include Aids-stricken children.
“Only certain stages are recognised with regards to HIV and Aids,” says Erika Wessel, regional advocacy coordinator for the Black Sash. “The problem here is that there is usually an administrative delay that prolongs the process. There are cases where a child has died while waiting for the grant to be accessible.
“With all three of the grants for children — child support, foster care and care dependency — a legal guardian has to apply. If the guardian doesn’t have an ID book, the child cannot receive the grant,” she says.
Patricia Martin says these administrative restrictions exclude many desperate children. “Street children and child-headed households can’t access grants because they do not have the required ID book or birth certificate.”
Martin welcomes the government’s willingness to register all those eligible for grants, but hopes there will be further action to dispel the idea that last month’s concerted campaign was merely a public relations exercise.
Wessel says a basic income grant should be introduced so all destitute people who do not qualify for existing grants will be eligible for some form of social security.