‘Social grants hike, R350 extension not a cause for celebration’ – Black Sash

The government isn’t doing beneficiaries any favours by increasing social grants as South Africa continues to grapple with a high unemployment rate and rising cost of living.

On Wednesday, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana announced increases to social grants during his Budget Speech.

The minister allocated R66 billion to the department of social development over the medium term, with R36 billion set to fund the Covid-19 social relief of distress (SRD) grant.

The R350 grant, which was first introduced in April 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, was extended until 31 March next year.

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All other social grants have been increased in line with inflation and will cost government R30 billion.

The old age and disability grants will increase by R90 on 1 April this year and a further R10 on 1 October 2023.

This will bring the total increase to R2,090.

In addition, the child support grant will rise from R480 to R510 on 1 October, while the foster care grant will go up from R1,070 to R1,130 over the same period.

‘Not an affordability issue’

With the exception of two grants, non-profit organisation (NPO) Black Sash says Godongwana’s hike was “barely an inflationary increase”.

“Essentially what the minister’s speech has done is provide the bare minimum. It’s not something to throw flowers at or to feel like people are owed some sense of gratitude that.

“An inflationary increase is something that should happen based on the current status of the economy so it’s not a favour he has done for anybody,” Black Sash director, Rachel Bukasa told eNCA on Wednesday.

READ MORE: SRD grant extended but what happened to basic income grant?

Bukasa said she was of the view that government was “selective” about the country’s financial constraints.

“It’s amazing that the fiscal pressure only exists when it comes to social security and income support, but there’s no pressure when it comes to bailing out SAA [South Africa Airways] and Eskom for the millionth time. This is clearly a political will issue and not an affordability issue,” she said.

“The reason why you have a society that is requiring more and more social support because you have a government that is failing to provide the bare minimum for people. If people had jobs they would not need to rely on social grants.”

She also said Black Sash was “quite disappointed” that the minister did not commit to replace the R350 with a universal basic income grant (BIG).

“It’s to our great surprise that from the speech there was no indication whatsoever that they are intending to honour that commitment. There was [also] no acknowledgement that what R350 was is 2020 and what it is today is completely two separate things,” Bukasa continued.

“The budget had nothing to do with our [poor] communities… it was aimed at the middle class and the wealthy,” she added.

Black Sash previously found in its report that the SRD grant was not sufficient to alleviate the multiple hardships that individuals and households encountered on a day-to-day basis.

Meanwhile, a number of unemployed young people with tertiary qualifications have relied on the R350 grant, according to the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa).

The agency received 13.5 million applications – including 716,000 graduates – for the social relief grant by the end of January.

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