The Implications of Food-Parcel Corruption for the Right to Food During the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Africa

The right to have access to sufficient food (which is closely associated with the rights to health, water, life, trade, social security, land, and so on) is explicitly provided in section 27(1)(b) of the Constitution of South Africa. However, the outbreak of Covid-19 caused the government to place the country under a nationwide lockdown, with strict regulations and directives that curtailed a number of socio-economic rights. The affected rights included the right to have access to sufficient food. The situation culminated in widespread food insecurity, hunger and malnutrition, as evidenced by affected poor urban families and other vulnerable groups, including the homeless living in designated shelters. These groups were unable to gain access to sufficient food or to buy it because of loss of income or lack of access to the informal market. In response, the government embarked on large-scale food-parcel distribution schemes geared towards feeding ‘deserving’ people. Against that background, this article sets out to ascertain the nature of the structural implications of food-parcel corruption for the right to sufficient food during the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa. A subsidiary aim is to offer useful solutions aimed at remedying the profound impacts of these structural implications. A fundamental pillar of the solutions entails a human-rights-dimensioned response, as well as the steadfast strengthening of anti-corruption mechanisms in food relief initiatives during emergencies caused by natural disasters.