A non-profit organisation that helps develop and implement strategies to challenge inequality and realise socio-economic rights in South Africa and beyond is questioning the Expanded Social Package.
With qualifying criteria for City of Johannesburg services rebates not easily met by residents in informal settlements, the Socio-Economic Rights Institute (Seri) believes Joburg’s social benefits package, the Expanded Social Package (ESP), is not so beneficial after all.
The institute is concerned that City of Johannesburg services rebates will only be given to qualifying residents who apply for it.
Seri’s researcher, Tiffany Ebrahim, and senior researcher, Maanda Makwarela, argued in a recently published op-ed that insistence on qualification criteria for residents to gain access to state support is precisely what keeps informal settlements severely underdeveloped and under-resourced.
“To ensure that residents of informal settlements who are provided with electricity and water connections are able to receive these services, they must not be required to qualify for an indigent register.”
The institute said factors like having a City account or getting metered services in the first place, mean these residents cannot qualify for the ESP.
It urged the City to look at the Upgrading of Informal Settlements Programme (UISP), instead. Researchers said this programme eliminates the need for qualification criteria or a register.
“The UISP, which forms part of the National Housing Code, enables municipalities to incrementally improve access to basic services and tenure security in informal settlements on-site for all people who live there, regardless of nationality or income.”
Opposition parties in council have also voiced their disdain with registering for the ESP, saying it is either not understood or that an overall flat exemption will benefit the poor more.
However, at the official electrification of Slovo Park informal settlement earlier this month, Executive Mayor Herman Mashaba said the plan is to have all indigent residents on the ESP.
In his State of the City Address earlier this year, Mashaba acknowledged that much still needs to be done, but that progress is being made to upgrade informal settlements. He said plans are in place for more electrification, formal water installation and better sanitation facilities.
But even though Slovo Park informal settlement is now electrified, it still has no metered water service to individual households, Seri argued.
To qualify for the ESP, applicants need to submit a City rates and taxes account, an electricity meter number, a water meter number, an ID, and proof of income of no more than R5 578.19 per month.
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