Key government departments are doing nothing to stop drug addiction, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Thursday.
DA spokesperson on social development Mike Waters said a reply to a DA question showed that 10 government departments had not yet submitted reports on drug-addiction strategies, most of which were already due last year.
Waters said ”all government entities are supposed to take full account of substance-abuse issues in their activities and budgets, and they are required to say what they will be doing in mini-drug master plans, and submit these to the central drug authority”.
Waters said ”some of the departments that have failed to produce plans are absolutely critical for any realistic assault on the causes and consequences of drug addiction”.
The departments that have not yet submitted reports included the South African Police Service (SAPS), the departments of education and health and the National Youth Commission.
Waters said the DA would be asking ”detailed questions” to each department to ”find out exactly why they are treating the government’s drug-abuse plan with such contempt”.
Spokesperson for the SAPS Ronnie Naidoo said the SAPS’s drug-addiction plan for the last financial year had been finalised and would be released in the next SAPS annual report.
Naidoo said, ”this office can therefore safely say that the SAPS strategy is up to date, workable and bearing fruit”.
Attempts to obtain comment from the other departments mentioned were unsuccessful. — Sapa