The National Lottery or Lotto as it is more commonly known, has dropped the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA). This cut in funding from the lottery has resulted in the SPCA having to limit its free services in poor communities.

As originally reported by GroundUp, the SPCA and its various branches across the country have received tens of millions of rands in funding from the National Lottery Commission (NLC).

A shift in focus for the NLC’s funding in 2017 meant that the SPCA and other animal welfare organisations would miss out. The NLC had announced that it would now focus on poverty relief.

In a statement, The National Council of SPCAs executive director Marcelle Meredith said the decision was “short- sighted and inexcusable”.

“We found out via the media that animal welfare organisations were not being considered for funding for 2016/2017,” Meg Wilson, the SPCA’s head of communications, told GroundUp.

The SPCA was informed that charities applying for funding for 2016/17 would have to align with the National Development Plan (NDP). This “only included helping vulnerable people and crime prevention”.

The animal welfare organisation then wrote to the NLC in order to raise its concerns regarding the decision.

They received this reply.

“Unfortunately, animal welfare is not one of the focus areas for this year’s open call for applications, and therefore your application will not be accepted this time around. The criteria also exclude some other sectors for this call.”

Wilson said that animal welfare does positively affect communities and the organisation’s work goes far beyond just animal welfare.

For the 2017/18 applications, animal welfare has once again been excluded. Regardless, the SPCA plans to apply again.

“The [SPCA] does enforce the law and in some of our portfolios, we do prevention and early intervention for the vulnerable,” Wilson said

Without lottery funding, the organisation says the situation is dire for the organisation as it does not receive any government funding.