Social development minister Lindiwe Zulu is calling for the urgent introduction of a basic income grant to replace the Covid-19 social relief of distress grant when this expires at end-April even though government is in the grip of a fiscal crisis.
On Friday all the major opposition parties expressed support for the idea, which has been on the ANC agenda for more than two decades, in a mini-plenary debate in the National Assembly.
"We need to find pathways towards introducing a basic income grant, to mobilise for a social compact. We believe it is possible," the minister told parliamentarians.
"Let us dispel the notion ... this has absolutely nothing to do with elections. It has everything to do with the ANC responding to the needs of our people."
The ANC has long supported a basic income grant. So have its alliance partner, Cosatu, civil society organisations and opposition parties. Most have voiced support for the introduction of a grant that caters for the unemployed between 18 years and 59 years old who do not qualify for social grants.
But the tight fiscal position in which government finds itself — with mounting debt and ever-increasing debt service costs coupled with pandemic spending — have required deep cuts to government expenditure that will make a basic income grant hard to implement.
The cuts entail a 2.2% reduction in the social grants budget over the next three years with R195.5bn allocated to all social grants in 2021/2022, which cover about 18-million people.
The government has also had to reprioritise the budgets of various departments to accomodate the cuts, the most recent to higher education allocations in order to supply funds for all qualifying university students.
There is much concern about the removal of the Covid-19 grant given the widespread poverty in SA, which has been made worse by the joblessness caused by lockdowns to fight the disease. The SA Social Security Agency, which administers the grant, told parliament in January that it has so far paid out about R15bn to more than 6-million beneficiaries while the Treasury indicated in the Budget Review R2bn had been allocated to cover the grant for April.
Assuming the more than 10-million unemployed people qualify for the basic income grant, the Treasury would have to find an additional R42bn in the budget, if the idea becomes policy.
Speaking during the debate on the need to introduce a basic income grant, Zulu said this is not the time to be playing politics around the issue as some opposition MPs suggested was the case for the ANC ahead of the local government elections.
After President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the R350 social relief of distress grant, Zulu asked officials in her department to come up with sustainable proposals for something to replace it.
The officials revisited the 2002 report by Prof Vivienne Taylor on a comprehensive social security system which recommended the introduction of a basic income grant.
Zulu referred to recent comments by finance minister Tito Mboweni whom she said had highlighted the high levels of poverty and unemployment in SA which he said the government needs to respond to.
Instead of asking whether SA can afford a basic income grant, the question should rather be whether SA can afford to live with such high levels of poverty and unemployment, Zulu said.
She said it was her role and that of her department to mobilise support from the rest of government for the introduction of a basic income grant. It is the time to move beyond discussion and policy proposals.
It is no longer a question of whether to introduce a basic income grant, Zulu said, but ones of how and when.
During the debate on the motion introduced by Good MP Shaun August, the DA, EFF, ACDP and IFP were among the opposition parties voicing support for a basic income grant. DA social development spokesperson Bridget Masango said the ANC promising one for decades but not delivering on it has been the biggest disappointment.
IFP MP Liezl van der Merwe said money for the introduction of a basic income grant could be found by eradicating corruption, mismanagement and looting.
Cosatu parliamentary coordinator Matthew Parks said Cosatu has been calling for a basic income grant for many years with the response by the government always being that there was no fiscal space. But he believed that at a cost of R2bn a month in a total budget of R1.6 trillion it was affordable and would have a huge impact.
Parks argued that the Covid-19 social relief of distress grant should be used as basis for a basic income grant.
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