Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - July 9, 2006
Phindile Chauke

'I take the point that we could have made meaningful interventions earlier. But I want to believe that those who came before me did their best to deal with the backlog'

THE wheels of justice grind too slowly for 22000 of Gauteng's orphans who cannot get approval for foster-care grants out of the courts.

And Gauteng Social Development MEC Mpetjane Kgaogelo Lekgoro is blaming the "tedious processes" of the justice system, the shortage of social workers, and the escalation of the HIV/Aids pandemic.

Already about 40000 children in Gauteng receive the R570 monthly foster-care grant. But the other 22000, who are still waiting for foster-care grants, have had to make do with receiving a R170 childcare grant or a food parcel from the Department of Social Development.

Lekgoro hinted at the growing numbers of children in crisis last month during his R1-billion budget speech, in which he allocated R309-million to child-protection services. That includes foster care.

But Lesley Mashokwe, spokesman for the Department of Justice, threw the blame back at Social Development. He said incorrect reports could not be admitted into evidence and were sent back for corrections, and children who were not registered with Home Affairs at birth caused delays in court.

"Children's Court matters ought to take a week at most when all the necessary documentation has been obtained. However, there is a lack of such documentation and local co-operation between courts and social workers," he said.

Mashokwe said his department, together with the Department of Social Development and the judiciary, had since agreed to work together to fast-track foster-care matters.

Lekgoro told Metro that he did not know why the backlog of cases was allowed to build up before his department intervened, but did say they had been tracking the situation since 2001 - when there were only 8172 registered children in foster care. The number had increased to 39139 by May this year.

Lekgoro has commissioned a task team to investigate a means of eliminating the backlog and is expecting to have "cracked" the problem by the end of this financial year, February 2007.

"I take the point that we could have made meaningful interventions earlier. But I want to believe that those who came before me did their best to deal with the backlog.

"The province is experiencing a shortage of social workers, so is the country and the rest of the world. It has become a scarce skill and the case load that a single social worker handles becomes a delaying factor."

Priscilla Khumalo, spokesman for the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union, to which many social workers belong, said the rate of incoming cases was increasing daily due to parents dying of Aids-related illnesses.

"Parents and relatives are dying and children are placed in foster care. Social workers are battling to keep up," she said.

The department only has 532 social workers in its employ, and 564 are working for non-governmental organisations.

But not all social workers handle foster-care cases. They are each expected to handle 60 cases "at any given time".

The starting salary for an entry-level social worker is about R85000 a year, which breaks down to a monthly salary of just over R7000.

But Lekgoro said he was hoping to institute plans that would ensure social workers were retained by his department, paid more and classified as having "scarce skills".

He said only social workers could submit foster-care cases to courts so that grants could be awarded to applicants.

"The courts are independent institutions. But we will be having discussions this month with them on how they can assist in fast-tracking our cases. If that works, I do not think we need specialised courts," he said.

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