Red tape threatens future of East Rand Children’s Haven
They will undoubtedly be forced to close down leaving 20 children without a home and 10 staff members without jobs.
Having provided a safe haven to hundreds of children over the past 26 years, the East Rand Children’s Haven is now under threat of closing down due to a snag in the process of re-registering the home.
According to Wendy Murphy, the haven’s programme director, all non-profit and non-governmental organisations, were instructed by the government to re-register four years ago.
“This process involved so many documents, and even though we were obviously registered many years ago and have been running a legitimate operation and providing a much-needed service since then, we were now being forced to go through the process of re-registration,” she said.
The East Rand Children’s Haven has been in operation since 1998. Before that, it was known as Die Babs Koen Kinderhuis, which opened around 1992.
Documents required by the government are as follows:
• Application form for registration
• Health permit/certificate
• Staff composition
• Daily menu
• Organisational profile
• Building plans
• Constitution
• Lease/owned/hired agreement
• Board members
• Code of conduct
• Emergency plan
• Food Handling Health certificate
• Clearance certificate
• Detailed description of the programmes offered
• Social Workers report/inspection report
• Type of building.
“There was an entire process to be followed in obtaining most of these documents,” said Murphy.
“We managed to obtain almost each and every document required within the two-year period allowed to complete the process.
“Our biggest obstacle has turned out to be the emergency plan.”
Murphy explained that they managed to meet all other requirements, such as having a fire hydrant installed, putting up additional fire extinguishers, installing smoke alarms, putting up all the necessary signage, putting staff through first aid and fire-fighting courses and obtaining a re-zoning certificate, but they also had to submit a number of documents in order to obtain the emergency plan from the municipality.
“Among these documents was our building plan, but the council was unable to provide us with copies of our property plans,” she said.
“Those that were given to us were the incorrect plans.
“Since we were required to have valid building plans in order to continue with the process, we went through great trouble and expense to have an architect draw up new plans for us.
“However, to submit the newly drawn up plans to the council, there is yet another checklist involved and we have hit a brick wall with the professional indemnity insurance.”
Murphy told the Herald they are struggling to find an engineer who will issue the home a professional indemnity insurance certificate.
“They claim that they only provide this certification if they themselves engineered the actual building,” she said.
“It seems that to come out and inspect the building will not suffice for them to provide us with the necessary certification.
“We have no way of finding out who the original engineer was and council will not accept our submission without a professional indemnity insurance certificate.
“We are out of ideas on how to go forward regarding this matter and are appealing to anybody out there with any knowledge or expertise in this field to assist us.”
Without the certificate, the haven cannot complete the re-registration process, which means they will no longer be able to receive a government subsidy. Without the subsidy they will undoubtedly be forced to close down leaving 20 children without a home and 10 staff members without jobs.
The East Rand Children”s Haven can be contacted on 011 813 2750, 079 575 7185 or via email at [email protected]
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