MEC Back In Court Next Month
From an article in Business Day Today
EASTERN Cape social development MEC Sam Kwelita will be back in court next month, this time on a charge of contempt.
Care House, a children's home in Middelburg, Eastern Cape, claims Kwelita "wilfully and in bad faith" failed to comply with a court order to pay place-of-safety grants for orphaned and vulnerable children in its care.
The home wants the MEC to be jailed or held personally liable for R37248 if he does not pay within 10 days.
It also wants the court to order Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya to investigate the noncompliance.
Last week the Constitutional Court, in a case which dealt with unpaid social grants, rapped the MEC over the knuckles for not paying attention to court judgments against the Eastern Cape provincial government.
In his judgment, Judge Zak Yacoob said: "It is probable that the legal advisers to the provincial government did not read the various judgments ... with sufficient care. If they did read them, however, their conduct is worse. Court judgments were ignored by these lawyers. This is unsatisfactory."
Under the Child Care Act, the MEC must pay R12 a day to feed and sustain each child kept in a place of safety under a Children's Court order. These are children who have been abandoned or removed from their homes.
This is the fourth high court application for payment of these grants in the past two years. The Legal Resources Centre (LRC) is preparing another application on the same issue.
Sarah Sephton of the LRC, which is representing Care House, said: "We've written to them, we've phoned, we've begged them to pay, and they don't pay. So our options are limited."
Care House has been battling with the Eastern Cape social development department since October 2006.
In March last year the Eastern Cape High Court ordered the MEC to pay arrears of place-of-safety grants to Care House. These were paid by the department following the order.
But the court also ordered that, in future, all place-of- safety grants be paid.
Care House said it had not received any payments since the initial one.
The R37 248 is not enough to cover one month's overheads for the home, said Dianne Lang, one of Care House's trustees.
"But it's the principle of the matter. The department has to acknowledge that it is accountable and responsible to the children."
The MEC has responded in court by saying outstanding amounts will be paid, and his department was not deliberately in contempt. He sought a postponement on the contempt application. Social development spokesman Gcobani Maswana said its legal section was working on the problem.
The legal department "wants to take the side of opposing the application because the initial signs that are coming is that we've done our job. But they want to verify that."
Posted 2nd June 2008