Limpopo launches vaccination drive for social development cluster workers

Limpopo has become the last province to launch the vaccine rollout programme for workers in the Social Development Cluster.

Social Development Minister, Lindiwe Zulu, says they are targeting more than 240 000 workers in the sector nationally. Twenty-five thousand workers, including Early Childhood Practitioners and officials in both Sassa and National Development Agency, have registered to receive their shots in the province.

Minister Zulu monitored the programme at the Modimolle MDR-TB facility.

“I am working at Sassa as a supply chain clerk, I am grateful because I will be able to go work without the fear that I can contract COVID,” says one of the workers.

Another worker says: “I take care of orphans, kids who lost their parents, I am feeling like I’m safe now. So if does not mean I have to walk around thinking COVID-19 will not get to me.”

Minister Zulu says they have set an ambitious target of reaching all workers in the sector.

“Today, we are here together because we want to show the coordinated approach by the government of making sure that our systems work, talking to each other, coordinating with each other at national, provincial and local.  We talk about the ambitious programme that we have, it is about the numbers that we have because we need to make sure that head count is really covered so our sector is here today,” she explains.

Meanwhile, Zulu has assured grant beneficiaries in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal that systems have been put in place to ensure they will receive their payments following the recent violence

“The two provinces in particular which have been affected, we are busy working on that because when all is said and done people who are hungry, people who need the Sassa money, they are not going to wait and be told to say wait a bit they are hungry and they need the money so we are doing everything we can to make sure that they get their money on time.”

Early Childhood Development workers, who have not yet registered, have been encouraged to make use of this opportunity.