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COVID-19 lockdown exasperating the situation for poor in Eastern Cape

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The effects of COVID-19 lockdown regulations is taking its toll on a number of impoverished families and the unemployed in the Eastern Cape. Life has suddenly become a misery that knows no end as they struggle to make ends meet while adhering to the regulations.

The province is among the poorest in the country, with some families in deep rural villages finding it hard to survive during the lockdown.

From those doing odd jobs to filling station and hotel workers, their lives have suddenly been turned upside down. 56-year-old Mandisa Ndita from Tabase village outside Mthatha lives with her seven unemployed children and five grandchildren in a two-roomed mud structure. She survives by cutting and selling firewood to locals. The child support grant she gets for two of her grandchildren is not enough to feed her huge family. The last straw was when Ndita was told she doesn’t qualify for food parcels because her two granddaughters are registered recipients of the child support grant.

“I cut firewood and sell to locals. Sometimes I do people’s washing, that’s how I earn a few rands. I cannot say my condition has changed for the better because I didn’t even get the food parcels. No one is working here except me. The money for child support is used to buy maize meal and some few items. I also contribute with the money I make. That’s how we survive here.”

In this video below Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane highlights ways the province will fight this pandemic:

While Ndita has to abide by the “Stay home” regulation of the lockdown, life becomes harder and harder.

“Now that I’m staying home, I go to my garden and get pumpkin and corn. I then grind the corn and mix that in the same pot and cook umqa. We eat that. I have made peace with the condition of this home. There’s no other way but I wish I could be like everyone else and not be this poor so that whenever there’s a problem with these piece-jobs I will have something to lean on,” adds Ndita.

The Department of Social Development has promised to look into the matter and assist where they can.  The Department’s spokesperson Gcobani Maswana says social workers are there to attend such manners.

“One of the critical functions of Social Workers is to ensure that they assess the family holistically. After that assessment then their intervention will be both immediate and the long term intervention. The immediate intervention will be a social grant, a social relief of distress. But the long term intervention is to identify a change agent in a family that will change the life of that family for the better,” says Maswana.

In this video below President Ramaphosa visits Nelson Mandela Bay in the Eastern Cape:

On the other hand, workers at the Mayfair Hotel in Mthatha are calling for government’s intervention, alleging that they haven’t received their Unemployment Insurance Fund since the beginning of the lockdown. Addressing the nation on Wednesday evening, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that about R11 billion has been used to pay UIF to over two-million employees but these workers say their employer keeps sending them from pillar to post.

“This has affected me badly because I only got paid R480 for last month. We still have not received UIF. They keep telling us to wait. We’ve been told to wait 48 hours and then 10 hours. When we look at the system we saw that there’s an amount of R87 000 but only the top managers got paid. I have three children. If it wasn’t for my mother I don’t know what would happen. I feel like I have failed my children as their mother. I’m only waiting for my UIF then I will go and live my life,” says one employee.

“We contributed. The company opened on the 1st of November 2018 but some months are not showing on the system, the filing system from labour. But we did contribute. When you check the payslip the money was deducted from the salary but it was not sent to labour, ” adds another.

The Labour Department has also promised to look into the matter of Mayfair employees and their unpaid UIF. Meanwhile, some disgruntled workers at two filling stations in Mthatha are also unhappy due to unpaid UIF.

 

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