8 December 2025
The Western Cape High Court has ordered the Gauteng Department of Social Development to disclose all documents related to non-profit organisation grants made from 2014 to 2024. Illustration: Lisa Nelson
GroundUp has secured a court order compelling the Gauteng Department of Social Development to provide, within 30 days, all documents pertaining to its grants to non-profit organisations between 2014 and 2024.
Western Cape High Court judges Mark Sher and Melanie Holderness made the ruling in a successful appeal by GroundUp, its reporter Raymond Joseph and editor Nathan Geffen, after a magistrate’s court only ordered limited disclosure.
The application, made in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA), sought information about grant funding, which Joseph was reporting on.
In April 2023, the department announced that it intended cutting R418-million from its budget for social grant funding for non-profit organisations. This was later reduced to R233-million.
At that time about 450 organisations – providing community care, health services, drug rehabilitation centres and homeless shelters – were reliant on the department for funding.
Joseph received a tip-off that despite the drastic budget cuts, large grants to some organisations had not been reduced.
In two articles published by GroundUp in early 2024, Joseph noted that in contrast to numerous other organisations, the Beauty Hub Academy (which offers training in hairdressing and beauty therapy) and Daracorp (which trains small-scale farmers) had collectively received almost R114-million, of which R56-million had been paid out in the financial year in which funding was slashed.
Joseph then lodged the PAIA application, requesting all documents pertaining to grant transfers and service level agreements, including those to the Beauty Hub Academy, for the financial years 2014 to 2024.
He received a curt response from the department, declining his request, without giving reasons.
Later, he received a further response, saying his request had been declined, because there was a risk it would expose financial and commercial details, such as banking details of the organisations.
Joseph appealed. He did not receive a response and it was deemed to have been refused.
He then launched an application in the Wynberg Magistrates’ Court, seeking to compel the department to provide the information.
While it was unopposed, the magistrate only ordered the department to provide the information relating to the Beauty Hub Academy, not the general body of non-profit organisations.
Joseph and GroundUp appealed the decision to the high court.
In the ruling handed down on Friday, Judge Sher, who penned the judgment, noted that government policy provided for transparency with grants to organisations, to both keep the public informed and to enable official monitoring of compliance with its policies.
“The information requested by Joseph was information which would, and should, have been kept by the department as part of this, and much of it should also have been published on its website, at least since 2023,” Sher said.
“Therefore the request for information pertaining to all grant transfers between 2014 and 2024 was a valid and competent one.”
“The [social development department] was obliged to provide it, unless it could legitimately refuse to do so on the grounds set out [in the Act].”
A refusal could only be done if the information requested contained financial, commercial, scientific or technical information of a third party, and it was “likely to cause harm” to that party’s commercial and financial interest.
The onus to show such harm rested on the department.
Sher said the department’s grounds for refusing the request were “spurious”, because it was unlikely that bank account details of organisations would be reflected in the requested documents. In any case, he said many organisations relied on outside donor funding, and likely openly publish their bank account details for donations. Further, the public interest of disclosure outweighed any harm which might accompany it, he said.
“To ensure that the social development departments, [non-profit organisations] and other entities involved in the transfer, receipt, and disbursement of social grants are property held accountable, it is vital that there be full transparency as to the flow of funds between them,” Judge Sher said.
The judge said bank account details of fund recipients needed to be scrutinised to ascertain whether the funds had not been “diverted or siphoned off, or fell prey to parasitic ‘rent seekers’, as they are commonly known”.
He said disclosure would “act as a safeguard against those who may be tempted to loot them”.
Sher said the department had not discharged the onus of showing the harm it alleged in its refusal. “Merely making such an averment in its letter of refusal was not sufficient,” he said.
The only reasonable inference to be drawn was that the request was refused on a “convenient excuse” and not a genuine reason.
Sher said the magistrate’s order could not stand. He set it aside and ordered the department to provide the information within 30 days.
The judge noted that the applicants’ advocates had acted pro bono (free of charge) “in the best traditions of the Bar”. But he ordered the department to pay the costs of GroundUp, Joseph and Geffen’s attorneys.