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Joe Mcgluwa, the ID spokesperson for Public Service and Administration, has called for a review of the work done by Community Development Workers (CDWs), who he says ‘cost the taxpayer R490 million a year and appear to be nothing more than ANC cadres that are being paid to recruit members.' 

The ID Member of Parliament was responding to an answer [below] to a question for written reply [also below] from Minister Richard Baloyi. The establishment of the CDW Programme was aimed at improving access to government services and therefore the improvement of living conditions for the poorest of the poor. 

‘The time has come for a review of the deployment of CDWs because it has become clear that they are not fulfilling their mandate, which is to ensure access to grants and other crucial services,' Mr Mcgluwa says. 

‘If they were doing their job then surely by now we would have seen a decrease in the number of service delivery protests that instead are continuing to escalate. 

‘The ID believes the original goal of this programme was in fact to empower ANC cadres to recruit agents and consolidate its national membership as a whole. In effect, these CDWs are nothing more than foot soldiers for the ruling party,' says Mcgluwa. 

‘For the ID it is worrying that the Minister can provide so few details on what exactly they are doing. The funding for CDWs comes from the provinces - these are conditional grants that must be spent accordingly.

‘It should also be remembered that the CDWs are there, like the Presidential Hotline, to help compensate for the incompetence and inefficiency of ANC councillors around the country,' Mcgluwa says.