Chairperson, the Department of Social Development's responsibility is to ensure that the most vulnerable in our society are taken care of. Despite this mandate, three key subprogrammes' funding have been slashed: Firstly, the funding for the subprogramme dealing with substance abuse has been reduced by 18% despite the pandemic swooping across our country and despite the President declaring this as a national emergency. Secondly, funding towards the youth has been slashed by 29%, which again should have been used in developing our youth and steering them away from harmful substances; and thirdly, the department has cut funding to older persons by a staggering 33%.
This clearly shows that the department has deliberately gone for soft targets while refusing to cut wasteful expenditure in other areas such as the National Development Agency, NDA, who have awarded themselves a 600% increase for the expenditure of the board and over 900% increase for new furniture for the board. The average salary of the employees at NDA is over half million rand each.
Other areas of concern are the Child Protection Register. It is irrelevant if there are 430 entered names on the register of 305. It is a disgrace that it is so low.
We still do not have a national drug master plan which is supposed to be the blueprint in the fight against substance abuse.
Despite having 3,8 million orphans in our country we still have a shortfall of over 50 000 social workers for the Children's Act alone. The DA cannot simply turn a blind eye to the plight of millions of vulnerable people in our country while the department cuts the budget to essential service. The DA cannot support this budget. I thank you.