The Department of Social Development has been informed about the arrest of a manager responsible for running the Old Age Home in Vosloorus following charges laid with the police by desperate employees.
The employees raised very serious concerns about the manager which include; non-payment of union membership fees although it showed to have been deducted on their pay slips, not receiving salaries for March 2022 to date and unauthorized cash withdrawals from the organization’s account.
These are serious allegations and impact of this is that those who stand to benefit from the centre will bear the ultimate brunt of this mismanagement and unethical behaviour. The Department is deeply saddened by this and condemns this behaviour with all the contempt it deserves, and calls on all NPOs to maintain highest levels of integrity at all times and ensure proper and ethical governance in dispensing their responsibilities towards the beneficiaries and the vulnerable.
The Department realises a bulk of its mandate through NPOs, and in its 2022/23 budget of R5b, an amount of more than R2b of this budget has been set aside for NPOs, as confirmed by MEC Morakane Mosupyoe last week Wednesday during her Budget Vote.
The Department had already picked up there were problems with the Vosloorus Society for Care of the Aged, and thus did not sign Service Level Agreement (SLA) with the NPO meaning in this financial year they are not receiving funding from the Department. The reason for not signing SLA include; failure to account for funds provided to the organization by the Department of Social Development in the financial year 2021/2022, non-compliance with registration in terms of Section 18 of the Older Persons Act 13 of 2006, and unstable governance issues which increases the risk of financial mismanagement. Department is not able to fund a centre that operates illegal especially after they had been given two years to fix the structural problems and acquire the health certificate.
The Department is preparing the removal of beneficiaries to alternative centres.
