Cape Town - Mother of five Lameez King from Freedom Park, Mitchells Plain, is not ungrateful for the government’s R350 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant, but feels the state could do better.
“The R350 is really only good for buying Kimbies (disposable nappies) and then it’s gone; we need more for it to make a real difference in our lives.”
King was speaking at the Cape Town launch of the Good party’s campaign for a basic income grant (BIG) to fight poverty in South Africa.
Currently, the SRD grant gives beneficiaries R350 a month. This has not increased since it was introduced in 2020 and will be funded until March 31, 2024.
De Lille said Good was launching the campaign because it was “unacceptable that about 15 million South Africans wake up every day without any guaranteed income and unable to meet their most basic needs.”
At the launch, De Lille said the quality of life of millions of South Africans nearly 30 years after democracy was “shameful”.
“The state is already providing grants to children and pensioners, and the disabled, among others. But it is excluding those who are excluded by the economy.”
Good secretary-general Brett Herron said the party’s research had shown the food poverty line in April 2022, was R663 per person per month.
Herron said research into the feasibility of funding from the national budget had been conducted, and R999 was the maximum that could reasonably be funded.
“It’s enough to meet the lowerbound poverty line as it was last published in 2022, with a little extra for a small travel subsidy – mainly for job seeking.”
He said that through the research Good commissioned they discovered that the increased grant could be funded through the likes of reducing the cost of provincial legislatures, provincial executives and resources allocated to offices of the premiers.
He also said that cutting out corruption and privatising, rather than bailing out dysfunctional state-owned enterprises, would be another way out.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za