Gauteng premier David Makhura (in blue overalls) at the opening of the Springs food bank in Ekurhuleni on Tuesday where he said casual, or piece, workers were ‘falling by the wayside’.
Image: Ernest Mabuza
The beneficiaries of food supplied by the government during the Covid-19 lockdown were not identified arbitrarily but according to existing government criteria based on need, Gauteng Premier David Makhura said on Tuesday.Makhura said this during the official opening of Ekurhuleni’s central food bank in Springs.

The food bank has received donations, mainly of food and sanitisers, from businesses in the area, and these donations will be distributed through a ward-based system to the poor during the lockdown.

Makhura said councillors would not be involved in the distribution of food, but would help to identify families in need.

“We want to remove politicians from the food-distribution system. In Tshwane, there were accusations that food was distributed along political lines.”

Makhura said the government had distributed food parcels – to last for a month – to 72,000 households since the start of the lockdown on March 27.

Food parcels were distributed to 2,000 households in the province every day, Makhura said.