ANC Women’s League gives Treasury seven days to show GBVF funding plan

The ANC Women’s League (ANCWL) handed a memorandum to Finance Minister Enoch Godongwane at the National Treasury in Pretoria on Monday, demanding clarity on how funding will be allocated to fight gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF). The league gave the minister an ultimatum of seven days to show how funding will be directed.

What the league says

ANCWL Acting President Cde Nokuthula Nqaba said the protest was about more than symbols and that the league wants concrete action.

“It’s an ongoing struggle that we’re faced with on GBVF. You can’t reduce it into a particular day or a particular month,”

she said. Nqaba added:

“We are giving the minister an ultimatum of seven days because we believe and are convinced that there is funding, but what is needed is to place that funding properly where it is needed to address the issues,”

and warned: “It can’t be business as usual.”

Timing and context

The march and memorandum delivery came after President Cyril Ramaphosa classified GBVF as a national disaster nine months ago. The protest coincided with the start of the term of the new statutory National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide, which the league said must be backed by clear funding.

Minister’s response

Minister Godongwana received the memorandum and said the issue was timely.

“It is correct for them to raise the issue, particularly when we celebrate seven years of a women’s march,”

he said.

Godongwane said government has started work on the practical meaning of the national disaster classification and that several work streams have been set up.

“Since the classification, there has been a movement in saying ‘What does it mean in practical terms’, and a number of work streams have been set up in government to say how do we deal with this issue,”

he said, adding that

“There’s also a number of departments who in their own efforts have got in their budget to contribute to the cause.”

The minister suggested the league’s concern might be about coordination rather than the total absence of money and said consolidation of effort across departments would be discussed with his colleagues. He also said:

“In the medium budget speech, there will be a statement to the effect that (I don’t know the numbers) to the fact that there’s some work which has been done and therefore needs to be an allocation in the budget,”

though he did not specify a figure. On the structure of funding he said:

“But what is being discussed in Cabinet is an attempt to come to a deal with that issue, whether it’s going to be a specific fund or is going to be in the different departments with some coordination,”

Godongwane said.

Concerns over department budgets

Parliamentary figures have questioned whether departments can reprioritise funds to address the disaster. In February, Liezl van der Merwe, Parliamentary chairperson of the Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities committee, expressed doubts about some departments’ ability to assist with funding reprioritisation. Tshehofatso Chauke-Adonis, a member of the same committee, said reallocating WYPD funds would be strenuous and asked:

“How [would] they have the ability to do that when they have the smallest budget out of all the departments?”

Chauke-Adonis warned that unless the treasury integrates a specific GBV disaster budget for departments,

“we have been set up for failure,”

she said.

What happens next

The ANCWL has set a seven-day deadline for the Treasury to demonstrate how funding will be placed to address GBVF. The minister has indicated a budget statement on GBVF will appear in the medium-term budget speech, but no allocation figure was given in his response.