Final Call for ECD Stimulus Employment Relief Fund Verification

The Western Cape Department of Social Development (DSD) wishes to remind all Early Childhood Development (ECD) Centres that applied for the ECD Employment Stimulus Relief Fund, to verify their details that have been captured on Government’s database by Tuesday, 31 August 2021.

The ECD sector has been particularly hard hit during the COVID-19 pandemic due to prolonged closures. Consequently, the Early Childhood Development Employment Stimulus Relief Fund is part of sustaining employment opportunities in the sector in light of the high unemployment rate and job losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

All ECDs that have applied for the ECD Stimulus Employment Relief Fund and have not received any payments are requested to check their application status and correct the information associated with the verification failures, which includes correcting service and staff details as well as the banking details of the facility.

As part of the ongoing verification process that is completed by the National Department of Social Development, field workers have been deployed in all nine provinces, to provide ECD Stimulus Employment Relief Fund applicants with onsite support to attend to outstanding matters on their application.

During the site verification visit, services are requested to take note of the following to ensure that they do not share personal information with unauthorised persons.

• Fieldworkers will be wearing a name tag with the fieldworker’s full name and fieldworker code.
• Fieldworkers can present a signed letter from the DSD stating the purpose of the visit.
• Fieldworkers can present the SurveyCTO app on their phones used for capturing the site verification data.

It is important to note that ECD services will NOT be allowed to start new applications or add new staff members to their current applications.

WHO TO CONTACT:

All applicants that have not received payment are requested to check their application status on www.ecd.gov.za/ecd/application/start. Once services have logged on using their application ID or reference, they will be able to view their application status and address any verification failures indicated. Should services not be able to correct the indicated error, services should email their query to ecdstimulus@dgmt.co.za before 31 August 2021.

• Fieldwork enquires (related to site visits): Milton Yose – milton@datainnovators.com // 011 568 3333
• Remote support: Masego Tabane- masego@datainnovators.com // 011 568 3333
• Programme Manager: Olwethu Sizani- Olwethu@datainnovators.com

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.