Government’s social sector cluster of ministries is making steady progress with delivery, Minister of Social Development Zola Skweyiya said on Friday.
Over 3,4-million children under the age of 14 now received the child-support grant, he said during a media briefing on the implementation of government’s programme of action.
The overall target was 3,2-million by the end of March 2006.
In the seven to 10 age group, the targets have been exceeded, but in the 11 to 14 category, there was still a shortfall of 119 000 children needing to be registered.
Skweyiya said it was estimated that the 1,2-million target for this category will be reached by the end of the current financial year.
Regarding basic services, he said the target for eradicating the historic bucket sanitation system in informal settlements is December 2007. To date, the programme had eliminated about 62 000 buckets.
There are still 166 000 buckets, mainly in the Free State.
Eradicating the basic water-services backlog is ahead of schedule, and at least 35,7-million of the targeted 37-million people now have access to free basic water, Skweyiya said. — Sapa