Process to devise Basic Income Support underway

The design of a Basic Income Support should resonate with the fiscal space while supporting its intended social outcomes and future-targeted policy objectives, says Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu.

Speaking during a Parliamentary debate of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Wednesday, Zulu said that the Social Development portfolio is in the process of devising a Basic Income Support.

During his State of the Nation Address last week, President Ramaphosa announced that work is underway to develop a mechanism for a targeted Basic Income Support (BIS) for the most vulnerable, within the country’s fiscal constraints.

“Owing to the rising cost of living, and with the view to cushion the most vulnerable among South Africans from the effects of known and novel risks alike, the Social Development portfolio is in the process of devising a Basic Income Support.

“If ours were not a society and economy that were structured to benefit the absolute few, there would be fewer reasons necessitating this intervention,” Zulu said.

Zulu highlighted that last year the Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana, informed the country that government will be spending R3.33 trillion on the social wage over a period of three years.

“While we are entering the second year of the three, we should particularly be mindful that this allocation is targeted at leaving no one behind by supporting vulnerable populations as well as low-income households,” she said.

This was government’s social wage intervention to ensure that the greatest number of South Africans are receiving public services and that, as much as possible, the cost of living that the vulnerable and needy in particular would have incurred is materially reduced.

R350 SRD Grant

The Minister said that the continued provision of the COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant to a growing number of South Africans on a monthly basis is living proof that government stands ready to protect its citizens against economic, health, social, climate change and similar shocks.

Notwithstanding the sharp economic growth slowdown globally, the Minister said the sixth administration continues to prioritise the provision of all categories of the social wage.

“The responsiveness of our government to novel challenges is courageously and visibly forthcoming while its long-standing commitments to continually pay the nearly 19 million disability, foster care and child support grants to eligible South Africans is unfaltering.

“This government considers the dignity of each South African as indispensable. For this reason, all our efforts are targeted at realising a dignified life,” Zulu said.

The Department of Social Development continues to support over twenty thousand non-profit organisations annually with more than R8.2 billion. In return, these social partners become the extension of the State’s capacity and attend to varied social challenges in communities.

Tackling GBV, substance abuse

The Minister said that added to this coordinated work is the contribution of traditional authorities to targeted programmes such as the fight against gender-based violence and femicide and substance abuse and the promotion of strong family units.

She said that early suggestions from these processes indicate that communities wish for their members to live in a violent-free society wherein they can meaningfully partake in the economy.

“Viewed from the Social Development vantage point, the epicenter of an inclusive and growing economy and common prosperity are resilient families and communities. Therefore, strong families are indispensable to a productive and inclusive South African society.

“In the quest to forge the most formidable defence against social ills and leakages that are caused by a weakened social fabric, the Social Development portfolio continues to invest in resilient families.”

Economic Sectors and Employment

In the current year, the Social Development portfolio will work together with departments that carry out the mandates of Economic Sectors and Employment as well as private sector partners towards defining a framework for the absorption of employable youth who are receiving social grants on behalf of their grant-eligible children.

“This should particularly set these grant-receiving youth on an economically-liberating and dignifying trajectory.

“Noting that nearly all of the young people who receive grants on behalf of children are young women, it is imperative that these be meaningfully empowered to improve their dignity and remove most of the socially constructed vulnerabilities that bedevil women,” Minister Zulu said.

She said that her discussion with Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga also entails programmatically devising sustainable solutions to deep-seated social challenges such as child pregnancies, absent fathers, etc.

“In the quest to alleviate the load on the fiscus, part of this population can be gainfully-employed whereas another can be self-employed through entrepreneurship support programmes that are available in the public and private sector.”