Note to Editors: Attached please find a soundbite in English by Refiloe Nt’sekhe MPL
For a child who has suffered abuse, an older person needing support, or a victim of gender-based violence seeking help, access to a social worker or child and youth care worker can determine whether they receive urgent assistance or are left to cope alone. Yet, the Gauteng Department of Social Development (GDSD) has admitted in a reply to questions posed by the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature (GPL) that 170 critical frontline posts remain vacant. The vacancies include 102 social workers and 74 child and youth care worker posts.
These are not administrative posts; they are frontline positions that need to be filled by professionals capable of protecting, supporting and caring for Gauteng’s most vulnerable residents when they need help the most.
The DA will table questions to the GDSD and Gauteng Treasury to ascertain why critical frontline posts remain vacant despite the department’s annual budget, including its compensation of employees’ allocation, having been approved in the GPL. The department must provide clear timelines for filling all 170 vacancies and outline the measures being implemented to prevent excessive caseloads for current officials.
What is particularly concerning is the department’s complete lack of urgency and failure to account for how it expects existing staff to absorb additional workloads while delivering quality services. Rather than providing clear timelines for filling these critical vacancies, the department shamelessly states in its reply that the posts “will be considered” for filling.
This is completely unacceptable. A department entrusted with protecting Gauteng’s most vulnerable residents cannot treat critical frontline vacancies as something that can be considered at some unspecified point in the future. Every day of delay puts vulnerable residents at greater risk.
Every vacant social worker post adds pressure to already stretched staff, increases waiting times, delays critical investigations and limits interventions in communities grappling with poverty, substance abuse and violence. Likewise, every vacant child and youth care worker position reduces the number of available professionals to support children in residential facilities, many having faced abuse, neglect, and trauma.
Premier Panyaza Lesufi has repeatedly stressed the importance of protecting vulnerable residents. In his 2026 State of the Province Address, he stated it was “compulsory” for the Gauteng government to protect the “weak, poor and vulnerable”, particularly children. However, the failure to fill 170 critical frontline posts contradicts this commitment, resulting in poor care for those in need and a missed opportunity to create jobs for qualified professionals.
Under a DA-led Gauteng Provincial Government, critical frontline vacancies would be urgently filled. We would put qualified professionals to work, reduce excessive caseloads, and ensure that taxpayer money provides genuine care and protection for the most vulnerable individuals in Gauteng.