The Democratic Alliance (DA) is today calling for the immediate resignation of Eastern Cape Social Development MEC, Bukiwe Fanta, following the tragic deaths of 70 children from Severe Acute Malnutrition in the first seven months of 2025.
The Eastern Cape is in the grip of a hunger disaster. Yet, under MEC Fanta’s leadership, the Department of Social Development (DSD) has failed in its most basic duty of protecting vulnerable children from preventable starvation.
The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) inquiry into child malnutrition, tabled in Parliament in November 2023, placed responsibility squarely on the Eastern Cape government to act. The report revealed that 1,087 children presented with Severe Acute Malnutrition between April 2021 and March 2022, with 116 deaths recorded.
It recommended urgent interventions, including declaring a provincial disaster and establishing a dedicated “war room” to coordinate relief efforts.
MEC Fanta’s department was entrusted with leading the fight against child malnutrition. It had the budget. It had the mandate. It even had clear recommendations from the SAHRC on what to do.
Yet, under her watch, the Department failed to deliver even the basics. In response to a parliamentary question from the DA, MEC Fanta admits that in the first three months of 2025, just nine food parcels were distributed across the entire province.
In districts where children are dying in the highest numbers, Alfred Nzo, OR Tambo, and Amathole, food aid was either non-existent or negligible. Only five parcels were distributed in Alfred Nzo, and two in Amathole between January and March 2025. Not a single food parcel was delivered in OR Tambo.
Download response here.
Communities are burying children while the Department of Social Development, the very Department tasked with relief, has failed to act with urgency. The Department’s paralysis and indifference have cost children their lives.
The Democratic Alliance holds MEC Bukiwe Fanta directly responsible. This is not about slow service. It is about lives lost because a department did not do its job. MEC Fanta has presided over a humanitarian disaster. She has lost the trust of the people of the Eastern Cape, and she must resign with immediate effect.
The DA will continue to fight for accountability and for the urgent declaration of child malnutrition as a provincial disaster. We will demand monthly, transparent reporting of food relief by district, and for an emergency task team that can deliver where MEC Fanta has failed.
Children in the Eastern Cape deserve a government that protects them, not one that abandons them. The province deserves leadership that delivers, and a future built on dignity, opportunity, and honest government.