Some crèches never got the promised Covid relief funds, and now it’s too late

Helen Diedericks runs an Early Childhood Development Centre from her home in Heideveld, Cape Town. Though she says her application for Covid relief funding was approved, she never received the money, and now the programme has advance to an conclude.

• The R496-million programme for Early Childhood Development Centres to alleviate the effects of the Covid pandemic has advance to an pause.
• The centres were invited to apply for a once-off payment of up to R4,186 per staff member.
• But many ECD centre owners complained that the application process was cumbersome and some acquire never received their funding.

It is a cold and peaceful Monday morning out on the streets of Heideveld, but when you walk into the Diminutive Footsteps Educare, you are greeted by warmth, children’s cries, singing and dancing.

Teacher and owner Helen Diedericks mutes the sing-along on the TV and tells her puny learners to sit down and prepare themselves for snack time. They jostle and shout. Some sit on the floor and a few rush around before finally settling down for a snack.

Diedericks is one of many early childhood development (ECD) educators who has been left disappointed by the ECD Stimulus Relief Fund. The fund was launched in February 2021, by the national Department of Social Development (DSD), as a measure to cushion the impact of the Covid pandemic on early childhood development programmes.

The DSD received R496-million to assist ECD centres, which were offered a maximum once-off payment of R4,186 per staff member.

But applying for funding proved to be a nightmare for some ECD centres. The process had to be done online through a government portal and the centres had to be fraction of government’s central supplier database.

“I applied in 2021, a miniature after this initiative was announced,” said Diedericks. “I went through the nightmare of the application and verification process. It was so frustrating it had me in tears. But after much difficulty and back and forth, I was ultimately verified before the terminate of 2021. After that all I did was wait, but nothing came.”

As 2021 went by, complaints about non payment of funds started. In May 2021, staff of ECD centres embarked on a three-day national protest over what they called the “appalling and virtually non-existent roll out of the employment stimulus relief fund”.

Protests and complaints continued through 2021 and 2022, even as early childhood development was switched from the DSD to the Department of Basic Education in April 2022.

Now the ECD Employment Stimulus Relief Fund project has closed.

Western Cape Education Department spokesperson Bronagh Hammond said after excluding duplicate applications and verification of sites, applications at 2,286 ECD sites in the province were considered.

“Of the 2,286 ECD sites, 2,149 sites (94%) believe been paid. The project has now ended. It closed in March 2023.”

“Some sites could not be paid due to unverified staff applications, and invalid banking details or closed accounts.”

She said applicants had been contacted and an audit company appointed to carry out site visits as portion of the verification process.

But Diedericks, who operates from her home, with 15 learners aged between three months and five years, said she was never contacted by anyone after her application was verified.

“If we had got the funds it would gain helped a lot, because I would’ve been able to pay salaries and buy some groceries for the crèche. Now we depend solely on fees that sometimes the parents cannot even afford. When I started this crèche in 2017, it wasn’t for gain, it was to service the community, which is why even if parents can’t pay school fees sometimes, I will never turn the child away,” said Diedericks.

Another applicant, Boniswa Mxhakaza, principal of the Khanyisa Educare in Makhaza, Khayelitsha, said the last time she dealt with the application process was last year.

“Every time I would apply for myself or the staff, I would acquire a response wanting more information or saying there’s incorrect or outstanding information. And each time I would depart back and fix these problems. But here I am today – no communication about where my application ended up,” said a frustrated Mxhakaza.

Khanyisa Educare was established in 2005, and has 130 learners, aged one to six years.

The Centre for Early Childhood Development (CECD) said the rollout of the relief fund was “the perfect example of how the government should not administer emergency relief funds to the country’s most vulnerable”.

Yusrah Ehrenreich, advocacy and social justice manager at the CECD, said national government was responsible for receiving, verifying and approving applications and approved applicants were paid by the provinces. Some provinces, like the Western Cape, also ran their own verification process before making payments.

Ehrenreich said the national government had failed to pay all eligible ECD workers the promised relief funds.

“The reasons for non-payment given by government are weak, inadequate, and unacceptable; we are shocked that blame is being shifted onto the ECD applicants, when it has always been clear that the acumen thousands of ECD principals, managers, teachers, cooks and other staff acquire not been paid is because of a government application process that was not fit for purpose, fraught with complications and complex technical problems; with poor communication from DSD/DBE to the ECD sector. If their scheme did not allow applicants to apply effectively, that is the fault of DSD’s scheme, not of the applicants,” said Ehrenreich.

She said the relief fund was intended to abate the effects of the pandemic and national lockdowns on ECD centres and their workforce, but due to government’s mishandling of the funds, most of the workers had not received any relief and the sector would hold years to recover from the pandemic.

“ECD centres closed, ECD staff left the sector to find more sustainable employment, and children are left without quality care and education, whilst their caregivers struggle to establish food on the table.”

“Frankly, DSD, DBE and the government at large, should be ashamed. The children of South Africa cannot afford to maintain their government fail them.”

GroundUp sent questions to the DBE on 8 June and followed up on 9 June and 12 June but no response has been received.

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