Solidarity Fund to close down in September

The Solidarity Fund has announced that it will be wrapping up its operations later this year.

The fund, established at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 for humanitarian relief efforts, is set to close down at the end of September 2022, following a resolution taken by its board in February. 

The Solidarity Fund said on Thursday it believed that it had fulfilled its current mandate as its funds were effectively fully allocated or disbursed.

It said no further fundraising, active or passive, would take place.

“The fund was established with a very specific and limited mandate and was never intended to be a long-term solution, but rather an urgent, interim, impactful and significant intervention in augmenting government’s response to the unfolding Covid-19 crisis,” said the fund’s spokesperson Didi Masoetsa in a statement.

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Closure timeline

Masoetsa said the remaining funds held by the non-profit organisation were in process of being defined, allocated and aligned to the closure timeline of the fund.

Its external audits for the 2022 and 2023 financial periods, together with other reports, would follow.

The bulk of the formal process to close the fund would also take place from this month through to July, and the final plans and processes were expected to take place through August and September 2022.

Masoetsa said the fund played its part in helping to capacitate the national and provincial healthcare systems, and believes that it stood ready to tackle any future waves of the pandemic.

“Covid-19 remains a threat, and the need for non-pharmaceutical interventions and vaccination continues. However, the nature of the pandemic has changed, in large part, thanks to the vaccine roll-out.

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“South Africa, and the world, are out of the crisis phase of Covid, and entering a stage where the approach to Covid needs to be normalised and managed alongside many diseases in society.

“Further, as the pandemic ebbs and flows and its impact on society has become more understood, the public and private healthcare sectors have evolved such that there is a much-reduced need for interventions such as ours,” she said.

As of 16 March 2022, just under R3.8 billion in Covid relief funding had been received by the Solidarity Fund, including VAT and interest, and just under R3.3 billion was disbursed.

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