Question NW1280 to the Minister of Social Development

Share this page:

06 August 2020 - NW1280

Profile picture: Abrahams, Ms ALA

Abrahams, Ms ALA to ask the Minister of Social Development

With reference to her department’s response to Covid-19 whereby the National Development Agency (NDA) will pay 120 civil society organisations R5 000 per month over a period of 6 months as an administration fee to manage 1 200 NDA volunteers, for what reasons did her department not engage and utilise the municipalities’ existing Expanded Public Works Programme databases for this Covid-19 action response?

Reply:

The National Development Agency Act 108 of 1998 (as amended) section 4(1) (d) gives the NDA duties and powers to “ create and maintain a database on civil society organisations, including, but not limited to, the scope and subject matter of their work and their geographical distribution, and share the information in that database with relevant organs of state and other stakeholders.” To this end the NDA has a database comprised of 15 858 CSOs that have been assessed and profiled. The CSOs that provided the volunteers were drawn from this database instead of the Municipalities’ existing Expanded Public Works Programme databases. Furthermore, the aim of using the NDA CSO database was to expand job opportunities to other young people who are not currently benefitting from any of government’s programs. The NDA does maintain strategic relationship with both the provincial and local governments in the implementation of its programmes.

Source file