'It can't be business as usual,' says ANCWL as they handed over the memorandum asking for clear funding to fight GBV.
ANCWL handed the memorandum to the Minister of Finance, Mr Enoch Godongwane in Pretoria. Picture: ANC Women’s League/Facebook
The ANC Women’s League (ANCWL) picketed straight to the vault on Monday and delivered a memorandum to Finance Minister Enoch Godongwane at the National Treasury offices in Pretoria.
The league says the department has failed to allocate funding to fight and deal with gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) cases, despite President Cyril Ramaphosa classifying GBVF as a national disaster nine months ago.
The march comes as the new National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide begins its term.
The council is meant to lead and coordinate South Africa’s response to GBVF, and the league says that response must be backed by clear money.
Demand for clear funding
ANCWL Acting President Cde Nokuthula Nqaba said the protest was about more than symbols.
“It’s an ongoing struggle that we’re faced with on GBVF. You can’t reduce it into a particular day or a particular month,” she said.
Nqaba said the league wants concrete action from the march. “The message is that we want to promise that from today’s picketing something positive will come out.”
She said the league is giving the minister an ultimatum of seven days to show how funding will be directed.
“We are giving the minister an ultimatum of seven days because we believe and are convinced that there is funding, but what is needed is to place that funding properly where it is needed to address the issues,” Nqaba said.
“It can’t be business as usual. [It has been] since last year, when the [classification] was made.”
Minister’s response
Minister Godongwana received the memorandum and said the issue is timely.
“It is correct for them to raise the issue, particularly when we celebrate seven years of a women’s march,” he said.
He said government has started work on the practical meaning of the national disaster classification.
“Since the classification, there has been a movement in saying ‘What does it mean in practical terms’, and a number of work streams have been set up in government to say how do we deal with this issue,” Godongwana said.
He said several departments are already contributing. “There’s also a number of departments who in their own efforts have got in their budget to contribute to the cause.”
But department budgets aren’t built for disasters?
In February, Liezl van der Merwe, Parliamentary chairperson of the Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities (WYPD) committee, shared her doubts that some departments can assist in reprioritising funding for the disaster.
Tshehofatso Chauke-Adonis, a member of WYPD, shared the same sentiment, complaining that reallocating WYPD funds would be strenuous.
“How [would] they have the ability to do that when they have the smallest budget out of all the departments?” she asked.
Unless the treasury integrates a specific GBV disaster budget for departments, “we have been set up for failure,” said Chauke-Adonis.
Treasury’s plan-ish
Godongwana said the league’s concern might be about coordination rather than total absence of money.
“Now it may well be what the women’s league is saying is that maybe we should not all be scattering effort across different departments; maybe we should consolidate that work. It’s something we’re going to be discussing with my colleagues,” Godongwana said.
He also promised a budget statement on GBVF.
“In the medium budget speech, there will be a statement to the effect that (I don’t know the numbers) to the fact that there’s some work which has been done and therefore needs to be an allocation in the budget,” he said. Though a figure for that allocation was not specified.
He also said Cabinet is discussing how to structure the funding.
“But what is being discussed in Cabinet is an attempt to come to a deal with that issue, whether it’s going to be a specific fund or is going to be in the different departments with some coordination,” Godongwane said.
