- Cogta has delayed paying non-profits project management fees for implementing the Community Work Programme.
- Several non-profits believe the delayed payment is unfair and accuse Cogta of punishing all instead of the few non-compliant ones.
- Protest produces promise of payment.
Nine implementing agents have received no project management fees from the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) for the last three months.
The non-profits are contracted by Cogta to implement the Community Work Programme (CWP), the department’s signature job-creation scheme.
As a result, the implementing agents have had to dip into their cash reserves, take out loans, apply for the UIF’s temporary relief scheme and in some cases begin the process of retrenching employees.
The delay in payment, according to a department statement on 9 June, was “due to non-compliance with [the] service level agreement [SLA]”.
Cogta said it would not pay delinquent non-profits if they did not account for the money given to them.
However, not all the non-profits, known as implementing agents, are guilty of non-compliance.
Frustrated, the implementing agents sent representatives from across the country to march to Cogta’s Tshwane offices on 10 June. Equipped with warm blankets, they threatened to camp outside the offices “until all are paid”.
A message sent before the march rallied representatives: “Kindly advise your staff to be ready with their laptops and data tomorrow in Pretoria in case these selfish inconsiderate unethical and brutal Cogta officials … pull the usual expired song of ‘Non-submissions and SLA’.”
The message alleged Cogta officials “shamelessly exploit, purposely suffocate black service providers while indulging themselves on public purse meant for the poor”.
However, the night before the march, Cogta issued a statement declaring its intention to pay compliant implementing agents as well as the remaining 37% of CWP participants whose wages for May have also not been paid.
Despite this, the march continued, and a meeting took place at Cogta’s offices where the department promised to meet with the to address any compliance shortcomings so that all implementing agents could be paid on Friday.
One of the march’s organisers, Michael Themba, said he was satisfied with the resolution following the meeting. However, he added: “I don’t understand why the department is concerned about [service level agreement] compliance only now…
Michael Themba briefing some of his colleagues while waiting for the deligation that were inside CoGTA (Richardo Edwards, Supplied by amaBhungane)
amaBhungane ricardo edwards
“Cogta should not wait for the financial year to end for them implement [service level agreement] compliance, that is a month-to-month activity as we report to them on a monthly basis,” Themba added.
Many of the implementing agents said they struggled to send the accounting documents Cogta required, because not all had the necessary permits required to travel across the province, and in some cases, across the country during lockdown.
In at least one case, Cogta asked for documents dating back to 2018 and did this during the height of lockdown when movement was most restricted.
“Most paperwork is happening at the site level,” explained Johannesburg site manager Velaphi Ndaba.
Because Cogta has not paid the implementing agents’ project management fees, these organisations could not pay their employees.
Ndaba asked:
How can you expect people to travel to work when they have no money?
In other cases, the implementing agents could not gain access to their offices during levels 4 and 5 lockdowns because their offices were housed in shuttered municipal buildings.
Ndaba alleged there was also mismanagement at the department: “Cogta loses reports [from 2018 and 2019] and wants to penalise implementing agents for non-compliance.”
However, Cogta has been scrutinising the CWP for some time.
It appears the decision to delay the payment of agents partly stemmed from the department’s decision to implement recommendations from the Auditor-General and its internal investigations.
Cogta Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma conceded in a reply to a parliamentary committee meeting in February the R4 billion-a-year programme was beset by corruption and mismanagement and needed to be overhauled.
“[The Community Work Programme] concerns me a lot because it has a lot of money,” Dlamini-Zuma told the committee.
“[The Community Work Programme] should be remodelled, we should look afresh. For instance, the [implementing agents] … get hundreds or hundreds of millions just to manage [the programme]. And they are non-profits, but they make probably more profit than any company, and this concerns me,” she said.
AmaBhungane’s own investigations into the CWP showed it faced problems with some implementing agents using public money to benefit businesses run by family members.
In May, one of the implementing agents, the South African Youth Movement (SAYM), approached the Pretoria High Court on an urgent basis, demanding Cogta pay its fees regardless because it could not collect the data requested by Cogta because of lockdown restrictions.
The SAYM claimed it had to resort to taking loans to meet its R1.4 million monthly salary bill and could end up retrenching some of its 109 staff members.
The court dismissed the case this week for lack of urgency.
According to Cogta, the SAYM was the only implementing agent with outstanding documentation, making it the one implementing agent in danger of not receiving payment from the department on Friday.
The SAYM was the subject of an amaBhungane and Daily Dispatch investigation earlier this year, where we revealed how it used what were essentially public funds to benefit companies linked to family and staff members.
When asked for comment regarding the march and subsequent meeting between provincial representatives and Cogta, it told amaBhungane it was not aware of Wednesday’s meeting nor had it receive any correspondence following the meeting.
“In relation to working with Cogta, we have a service level agreement … which we respect and adhere to at all times, and we plan to continue to do so until the end of [the] contract,” the SAYM said.
READ | Who’s eating the Community Work Programme? Explore the data
