16 Apr 2020

 Southern District Council chief social and community development officer, Ms Kehumile Mogobe has assured the public that her office would speed up the issuance of food relief assistance to  those who were financially affected by COVID-19 extreme social distancing regulations.

In an interview with BOPA, Ms Mogobe noted that they had already started providing coupons for recommended beneficiaries to access the COVID-19 food basket.

“We are very much aware that some people are without any form of income and are becoming more desperate for the basic necessities , as we go deeper into the extreme social distancing period,” she said.

She indicated that they began assisting people last week, adding that as a way of speeding up the service, they had employed 30 social workers in addition to the existing teams in Kanye, Moshupa, Mabutsane and Good Hope.

“We have our teams on the ground and they have already started assessments and also provide food packages as soon as they are recommended,” she said.

She noted that so far they had assessed 403 persons at Moshupa and assisted 256 and were yet to assist some 108 persons. In Kanye, they have assisted 56 out of 117 recommended beneficiaries, she added.

In Good Hope, a total of 332 persons assessed will all receive the food baskets. She however, indicated that the numbers would keep on increasing as the officers were on the ground, assessing, recommending and assisting people on a daily basis.

She said her team had noticed that almost everyone wanted to benefit from the programme, adding that people would be assessed, but not all would benefit.

Ms Mogobe indicated that other than the 995 beneficiaries of Poverty Eradication programme, priority was also given to ‘hustlers’ such as street hawkers, car washers, brick layers, welders, among others.

She explained that those groups were economically constrained and could not sustain themselves while restricted to their homes.

 “We are yet to assess 395 people who are awaiting Poverty Eradication assistance, as they have also been identified as potential clients,” she said.

Ms Mogobe noted that they also worked closely with the District Administration Office, COVID-19 community team and the bye-law office. END