Poverty is its own trap… you can’t play Monopoly without any money

What would you do if R350 was all you earned a month?

Cyril Ramaphosa’s advisors say we can’t afford to keep the current basic income grant of R350, which was introduced for the poorest during the pandemic and then reinstated following the riots last year.

Well, I say we can’t afford not to. Poverty is its own trap: you can’t play Monopoly without any money.

How can we expect things to improve when millions don’t even know how they’re going to buy their next meal? How can we afford to cut their lifeline?

ALSO READ: South Africans can’t live on grants alone, need sustainability

The way out of this grinding deprivation is not soup kitchens and clothes donations; the way out is to give people decision-making power, bargaining authority and dignity. This means money.

A small but steady cashflow is central to a growing number of forward-thinking global upliftment projects: as opposed to giving people what you think they need, you give people a universal basic income (UBI) regularly, unconditionally, so they can buy what they need.

It works. GiveDirectly is a non-profit group running schemes sending cash transfers directly to some of the world’s poorest households, no strings attached, in places like Rwanda, Malawi, Uganda and even the US.

People assume the recipients will blow the cash on booze. They don’t.

They use it for livestock, medicine, school fees, water, solar lights, tin roofs… They use it to build a better life.

The money goes back into the local economy too. It’s not charity, but an investment in the future.

READ MORE: Basic income grant could boost ailing economy

South Africa’s grant of just R350 per month – still below the R595 food poverty line – gives the poorest the cost of a bag of pap, and perhaps a break from worrying about where their next meal will come from long enough to see a future beyond suppertime.

This grant starts to mitigate South Africa’s yawning inequality, the number one driver of crime and instability, not to mention poor health, low productivity, school non-attendance, and more.

But how can we afford it?

As US president Lyndon Johnson told Congress in 1964: “$1 000 invested in salvaging an unemployable youth today can return $40 000 or more in his lifetime.” So again I say, how can we not afford it?