The government must immediately carry out the Constitutional Court’s ruling on the treatment of mothers living with HIV and Aids, as well as their newly born babies, a SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) report said on Tuesday.
It said a plan for universal access to antiretrovirals by those with HIV/Aids should be the government’s top priority and the Health Department’s budget should reflect this.
”The urgency of reducing new infections and treating people living with HIV/Aids requires not only political will but additional funding to tackle the pandemic,” according to the fourth annual economic and social rights report released by SAHRC chairman Jody Kollapen in Johannesburg.
”The court ruling needs to be also taken into account and (to) be implemented immediately,” the report said.
The 533-page report, compiled between 2000 and 2002, reviews the success of government’s efforts to realise the rights to basic services as outlined in the Bill of Rights.
Last year, the Constitutional Court ruled that the government should universally implement its antiretroviral treatment programme at all state hospitals with the capacity to do so.
Aids activists have since accused the government of largely ignoring the ruling even though the pandemic was claiming about 600 lives daily.
On social services, the report said migrant workers from neighbouring countries were illegally receiving social grants from South Africa.
”In all its efforts to eradicate fraud and corruption, the government has not instituted measures to deal with migrants who have access to social grants when in fact they are not entitled to such services.”
It said a substantial number of migrant workers entered South Africa monthly to collect social security benefits.
It is not clear whether the Social Development Department was able –when re-registering claimants — to separate citizens from people who were migrant workers during the apartheid period.
The report said there was rampant corruption in the national and provincial social welfare departments despite government’s efforts to curb this practice.
Two officials from the national department were investigated for corruption and maladministration totalling about R4,2-million between 2000 and 2002.
While some provinces reported fraud in this period, the Eastern Cape government said there had been no acts of fraud or corruption in its province.
The report however said information from sources revealed that in some parts of the former Transkei fraud syndicates had been uncovered.
It said the allocation of the government’s child support grant (CSG) was unconstitutional.
Currently, children above the age of seven were not eligible for a grant.
The constitution defines a child as a person under the age of 18 years, therefore to deny children between the ages of eight and 18 grants was unconstitutional.
The report said street children also did not have access to the CSG and other forms of assistance such a poverty alleviation programmes and projects offered to other children.
”These kids are unable to benefit from the primary school nutrition programmes because they do not go to school and cannot even access basic health services.”
The document said refugee children were denied access to the CSG because they were not citizens of the country and did not have the necessary documentation.
This was against Article 23 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of Children, which requires South Africa as a party to ensure that refugee children received appropriate protection and humanitarian assistance.
Children with minor disabilities were also denied access to a child dependency grant (CDG).
The CDG provides for certain contingencies, such as severe disability in childhood, while failing to provide for childhood chronic illnesses.
”This group of children and their families have extra costs and burdens due to the health condition that greatly reduce their chances of development and equal opportunities in life.”
The report said the housing department’s failure to spend its allocated budget in the past financial year was contributing to a housing backlog.
The department complained its budget for the 2001/02 financial year was inadequate even though it did not spend the entire funds.
”The department’s under-expenditure was about R100-million in the period and no reasons were provided for this.”
It said the trend of under-spending was evident in most provincial housing departments.
Most provincial departments indicated that the lack of capacity at municipal level was the cause of under-spending.
Gauteng, the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, and the North West were provinces that did not fully utilise their allocated budgets.
The report said housing backlogs had led to the mushrooming of overcrowded squatter camps outside cities and towns.
At least 1088 informal settlements had been established between 2001 and 2002. – Sapa