Citizens Forum calls on President Ramaphosa to probe GBV Call Center saga

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The Activists and Citizens Forum(ACF) has called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to probe Gender Based Violence(GBV) Call Center saga.

ACF said it smells a rat of corruption with the contract following the an interview where Social Development minister Lindiwe Zulu and her deputy, Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu squared off on national TV while trying to justify the state of the Gender-Based Violence Command Centre (GBVCC) that is alleged to have “collapsed.”

Bogopane-Zulu claimed that the call center has collapsed. She is adamant that she was never informed about the way that tender was concluded or approved with Vodacom.  

While Zulu rejected the claims saying that her deputy is wrong and the call center is fully functional and denied that the call center has collapsed.

According to Lumka Oliphant, the departmental spokesperson, it is factually incorrect and misleading to state that the GBVCC has “completely collapsed”.

“It is indeed operating and functional, albeit some technical challenges which there is typical operations of this nature, and to which the department has been engaging with the relevant government departments and the service provider. 

“Amongst some of the interventions being implemented, the department, as an interim measure, migrated the GBVCC from Salvokop to the Human Sciences Research Council building, where the National DSD is housed.

“The centre is processing calls that come from either the victims or those reporting known cases of abuse, and Social Service Professions are directing these calls to the relevant bodies for intervention in line with established protocols,” she added.

The Forum’s spokesperson Dennis Bloem said this situation must never be allowed in our government where a minister and a deputy minister of the same ministry contradict each other in public.

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“This is totally unacceptable to us. It is very clear to us that very critical information was kept away from the deputy minister, and this had to do with a massive contract for this call center.

“This call center saga is very serious. GBV has been declared a pandemic by the government, and millions of rands of taxpayers’ money is pumped into the fight against GBV,” he stated.

Bloem further called upon President Ramaphosa to institute an investigation into these very serious allegations and place both minister and her deputy on special leave for the duration of the investigation.