UPDATE: Payment of ECD Stimulus Relief Fund in the Western Cape

The National Department of Social Development has received R496 million from National Treasury as part of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s COVID-19 relief measures, to assist ECD programmes and services that have been impacted by the COVID pandemic.

Of the R496 million received by National Treasury, the provincial Department of Social Development (DSD) has received R53 million and has contracted an intermediary organisation, to assist with the processing of payments and verification of the Early Childhood Development (ECD) Stimulus Relief Fund in the Province.

As of the official closing date, 26 February 2021, a total of 3159 applications have been received from the Western Cape. According to the provincial DSD database, there are approximately 4282 ECD centres and programmes (both registered and unregistered) in the province.

As part of the ongoing verification process that is completed by the National Department of Social Development, applicants have been sent an SMS to advise them to update their applications. For this reason, all ECD operators who have applied for the  ECD Stimulus Relief Fund  are urged to ensure that all their details that have been captured correctly, as this will affect the approval and processing of their  payments.

The provincial DSD has to date only received a total of 794 applications from the national Department of Social Development. These are the ECD applicants that have fulfilled the eligibility criteria applied by the national Department of Social Development (based on the Policy on the ECD Employment Stimulus Relief Grant).  

The Provincial DSD is still waiting on the National Department of Social Development to send us the rest of the respective ECD applicants once they have been verified and approved.

Non-payments to ECDs that were found to be eligible to receive support from the ECD Stimulus Relief Fund is mainly due to no or incorrect banking details that were provided by the applicants.

The provincial DSD has returned the details of those ECD facilities with either the incorrect and/or no banking details back to DG Murray Trust (who has partnered with the national Department of Social Development on this project).

The National Department of Social Development has informed us that the DG Murray Trust will try to obtain this information that will hopefully result in a delayed payment being made by the province.

For more information on the Early Childhood Development Employment Stimulus Relief Fund:

For assistance with the applications, please email ecdstimulus@dgmt.co.za.

The National Department of Social Development further notes that it is unable to process any payments if applications have bank and staff verification inaccuracies as a result of wrong information submitted by applicants. Hence, applicants need to verify their details and do the necessary corrections to avoid payment delays.