Grant will show we care — Ramaphosa

• Income for poor gets serious consideration • Changes to cabinet are ‘under review’

President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Sunday night that both the government and the ANC were actively engaged in giving serious consideration to a basic income grant.

Speaking at the annual Nelson Mandela memorial lecture after 10 days of unprecedented violence and mayhem in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, Ramaphosa said a basic income grant would show people that the government cared.

“This will validate our people and show them that we are giving serious consideration to their lives ... we are giving active consideration to the grinding poverty that we continue to see in our country ... we need to address the structural inequalities in our economy,” he said.

Ramaphosa said that the government had to move faster on unemployment and job creation, especially for the youth.

It was, therefore, doing an assessment of the economic reconstruction and recovery programme, which was put in place to counter the crisis brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic during 2020.

Trade union federation Cosatu and numerous civil society organisations have campaigned for the introduction of a basic income grant for the unemployed since 1994.

Cosatu has appealed to the government to reintroduce the R350 Covid-19 special grant, that was in place for six months over the lockdown last year.

About 18-million South Africans already rely on the government for welfare grants.

The state’s failure to get a grip on the chaos for more than a week has raised questions over the competence of ministers in his cabinet.

While on a walkabout in Soweto on Sunday, Ramaphosa was pressed by journalists for answers about whether he would make changes to his cabinet. He said: “It is under review.”

His central message on the walkabout was that SA was “rebuilding” and would “emerge stronger” but he declined to answer questions about consequence management after violence and looting that claimed 221 lives.

On Friday night, Ramaphosa called the unprecedented levels

of looting, arson and violence in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng an “insurrection”.

“These actions are intended to cripple the economy, cause social instability and severely weaken — or even dislodge — the democratic state. Using the pretext of a political grievance, those behind these acts have sought to provoke a popular insurrection,” he said.

Ramaphosa’s security ministers have publicly defended themselves. “If it is insurrection then insurrection must have a face: if it is a coup, a coup will also have a face. But none of [the evidence] so far talks to that. We are seeing signs of counterrevolution which is creeping in, in the form of criminality and thuggery,” defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula told the joint standing committee on defence in parliament on Sunday night.

The SA National Defence Force deployment came too late for hundreds of businesses that were razed to the ground in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. Orchestrated political instability, fuelled by inequality and unemployment, was made worse by a failure to respond by police, which emboldened looters.

In Durban, police minister Bheki Cele told media that three of the so-called instigators had been arrested. Neither Cele nor the SA Police Service have answered why hotspots last week did not have water cannons and other public order policing tools at their disposal.

A threat analysis from state security agencies had warned of a potential uprising days before former president Jacob Zuma went to jail for refusing to testify at the state-capture inquiry.

KwaZulu-Natal premier Sihle Zikalala said in an interview with Business Day on Sunday that he tried his best to ask for support nationally. “We did our part. We are not in charge. It is a very hard lesson,” Zikalala said.

He went on to clarify that KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi reports to “national”. Notably, Mkhwanazi was widely praised two weeks ago for his non-confrontational approach with supporters of Zuma at his Nkandla homestead with the aim of preventing a Marikana tragedy.

SECURITY MINISTERS HAVE PUBLICLY DEFENDED THEMSELVES