In less than a month's time, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana will deliver his inaugural budget speech. The highly anticipated speech will address the subject of grant shortfalls and social security spending from the government.
Minister Godongwana is an integral group of personnel that are currently engaged with civil organisations calling for the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant to be extended. The group is also calling for the grant to be increased to R629, which is the current poverty line in South Africa.
This group consists of the Institute for Economic Justice, the Black Sash and Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute. The group held a meeting last week with President Cyril Ramaphosa, Minister of Social Development Lindiwe Zulu and Godongwana.
The SRD grant was initially introduced to shield unemployed individuals from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. It was reintroduced in August 2021 and is expected to come to an end in March 2022.
Black Sash National Director, Rachel Bukasa says the biggest challenge is around the narrative that focusing on social assistance will mean government is not focusing on job creation and stimulating the economy.
She believes that social assistance can stimulate a distressed economy.
Bukasa added, “The issue of of a basic income grant is not a cost thing, it's essentially an investment and if we don't act on it, if we don't go ahead with it, the cost to that is going to be so much more serious particularly for the poorest of the poor so at this stage South Africa actually cannot afford not to go this route”.
She says that the president can appoint a panel of experts which could look at the affordability of the grant. This panel should include all stakeholder, academics and economists.
“As a result of the meeting what I can definitely say for sure is that we did get an assurance that there would be further engagement of how we proceed with this. Government was not able to commit essentially with regards to timelines and if this is getting done and when but essentially I think we're at a place where there's essentially a little bit more political will than there initially was” concluded Bukasa.
