Child Welfare scandal sparks outcry

One child stared down the barrel of a loaded firearm, held by its drunk foster mother. Another, who was “naughty”, was forced to sleep outside for the night.

A two-year-old has been waiting for four months to have her sexual abuse reported to the police.

And complaints of child neglect have not been attended for more than nine months.

These are just some of the serious child abuse cases that social workers at Vereeniging’s Child Welfare office have ignored. And now, the cases are also being shunned by the Department of Health and Social Development.

The cases of neglect were uncovered in December, when the department audited Child Welfare Vereeniging.

But two months since the audit, nothing has been done about the cases, nor the NGO’s failure to deal with the cases.

The Star has seen a copy of the audit, but allegations of financial mismanagement have surfaced in the meantime, and the NGO is being investigated by the National Lotteries Board (NLB), which wants to know what happened to just more than R1 million given to it.

Last week, Child Welfare South Africa stepped in to control the branch. It banished the board and appointed an interim board while it investigates the matter, Sedibeng regional co-ordinator Johan Martinson confirmed.

According to the departmental audit, the children’s files did not have any progress notes or updates to ensure that the cases were dealt with correctly. The audit found that supervision and control were lacking in the organisation and needed to be attended to as a matter of urgency. And then there was the matter of the delays in cases or in services being rendered.

The report highlighted how office supervisor Anet Hoof, working as the head of a local safe house, would be detrimental for the organisation.

Sarie Schoeman, who was hired as the interim office supervisor at Child Welfare Vereeniging, admitted there were cases “hanging in the air” but said they viewed the feedback as positive rather than negative.

There has also been a massive turnover of personnel, which meant that processes needed to be started again and that there was a backlog with one of the social worker’s caseloads, said Schoeman.

She said the new Children’s Act changed the way cases were handled and meant that cases took twice as long.

She said Hoof, accused of moonlighting at the Sedibeng safe house, had declared her position as the head of the safe house when she started her contract as office head.

Health and Social Development Department spokesman Simon Zwane said an urgent meeting would be held with the management committee of Child Welfare Vereeniging.

“The critical findings are still going to be discussed with management, and we can’t discuss it publicly before we discuss it with them.”

He said there were areas that needed to be improved and interventions that needed to be made. Zwane would not comment on why there had been no action, nor would he say anything about Hoof’s moonlighting.

Hoof is accused of mismanaging funds from the NLB. She resigned in mid-January when she was asked to verify the spending of funds.

The Star has seen documents indicating incorrect expenditure, and an e-mail about Hoof from Child Welfare Vereeniging chairwoman Lanette Smit to several board members reveals irregular spending.

“…This (the NLB) report indicated that all the money granted to Vereeniging was utilised as prescribed by the fund. Upon investigation it was found that this was not the case. When Ms Hoof (office head) was requested to provide supporting documents for the indicated expenditure, she indicated that she could not do so as most of the money was spent on salaries. Ms Hoof has now been requested to present management with details of services rendered to the community during the previous calendar year by no later than end January 2011.”

Smit would not comment and referred queries to first vice-chairwoman Mary Hoogenhout or second vice-chairwoman Gloria Nobile.

Nobile would not comment.

Hoogenhout denied that the money was spent irregularly.

“All the money is there. It was used for projects. It was impossible to split the money into different categories for those projects,” she said.

NLB spokesman Sershan Naidoo would not comment on the matter.