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Department of Social Development cares not: the graduate programme failure.

The department of social development is one of the worse performing departments in government. The irony is that, the same underperforming minister was retained. The issue of graduate programme showed how incompetent the department is, worse it showed how arrogant, rude and unremorseful the minister is. Lastly it showed that Minister Bathabile Dlamini put her political ambitions over her job.

It took the minister seven (7) months to realize and acknowledge that the graduates were not employed, and they were no means to employ them.  When I asked this on the department’s Facebook page, the admin replied by stating that the report was compiled in 9 provinces, therefore it took time. I was astounded by such response. This response creates an impression that the provincial departments were not effective in compiling reports and submit them to the national department. If I were to assume that it was the provincial departments that compiled the reports and submitted them to the department, thus the job of the national department was to analyze those reports; it is still ludicrous that the department could take the whole seven months to analyze such reports. This also shows how passive the department is. If the department was active, they would have foreseen that they will experience challenges with graduates programmes and make means to solve it before it exacerbate.

Holding such powerful position and serving for a second term, it has made the minister arrogant, rude and unremorseful. This was evidently showed by the minster’s behavior of not wanting to inform and engage the graduates as to what their fate is concerning this matter. The department play hide and seek with the graduates, who I don’t think any of the graduates is in the mood or they enjoy the game as much as the department does. The response that we get from the department when asked about this issue is appalling. The most appalling one is the one that was posted on social network Twitter. Instead of the minister engaging the graduate that was asking about this issue her response was “you are one of the spoilt brats who want things to be brought with a tray start an NGO what are you doing for you [sic] community “. When I saw this tweet, as they call it those who are on Twitter, my mouth went dry, and I was out of words.  Some people may agree with the response, but I doubt that an educated person will.

The minister’s response was negligence and reckless, if it is not the minister that posted such response but one of her personal assistants, I suggest she look at the posts before are being posted. The reason why I say the response was reckless is that, the minister asks a newly graduated graduate that has no experience in the field, no means, and no funding to start an NGO.  Apparently the funding is provided by the same department that is allegedly lack funding to hire graduates, the very same department that lack resources and also in conflict with the values and principles of social work, but that’s an issue for another time. Telling more than 300 graduates to start NGOs because waiting to be employed by the department as per contractual agreement is not achievable or even possible for that matter, the department cannot fund so many NGOs, and  businesses may be reluctant to fund NGOs that are started by graduates who lack experience. 

Interestingly the minister went further to state that there are people who never received any governmental assistance. In my understanding rich and middle class people do not require any type of assistance from government; therefore it is only poor people. For the minister who is serving a second term to come and say such words it is abominable. It asserts how incompetent the government is. After 20 years of democracy and billions of wasteful expenditure by the government, the minister can proudly tell a student who worked hard to obtain her degree that there are people who have not received any assistance, therefore shove your needs through your throat. 

I have to concede with Esethu Hasane’s recent article titled “BLACK PEOPLE DON’T LOVE EACH OTHER” the minister has found comfort to her position and she is telling the graduates to go f@#k themselves, she doesn’t care for all that matters. The same minister that is supposed to be lifting black poor graduates, she is telling them that they are spoilt brats. It is true that as darkies we don’t like each other, instead of uplifting each other, we suppress each other. The minister enjoys her lavish lifestyle forgetting that she was once poor, and she knows debacles of being poor, but being poor while educated is even a worst case scenario.

The minister put her political ambitions over her job, many of the graduates from Gauteng were employed as early as May, yet graduates from other provinces none has been employed. The reality, is that  the ANC nearly loss Gauteng province, shortly, the ANC heavyweight Gwede mantashe issued a statement calling government institutions to speed up service delivery especially to areas where they lost support.

During the election, the media also alleged that the minister was contributing food parcels to canvass votes for the ANC; this could be proven as the department now lacks funds to hire graduates. At the time of elections, the distribution of food parcels was extremely high; this shows where the money was spent. If the minister disputes this point, then I challenge her to show us her budgetary spending and show us where most of the funds were spend.   

The issue of graduate programme would have been solved long time ago if the minister had genuinely acknowledged it, and if the minster love and cherishe her job and not doing it for money, politics and lavish meaningless lifestyle that seeks to destroy our beloved country.

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