New grant for the poor is on the table

• Announcement may happen within days • Talks focus on how much relief and for how long

President Cyril Ramaphosa may announce within days the reintroduction of the social relief of distress grant as immediate relief to millions suffering from hunger.

The unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, in which thousands of people looted food and other goods, has galvanised the government and the ANC to explore proposals for income support to the destitute.

Urgent discussions are being held between the Treasury, the presidency and the department of social welfare to find agreement on the size of the benefit, who it will go to and how long it will last.

The latest National Income Dynamics Corona Virus Rapid Mobile Study (Nids-Cram) published this month found that levels of hunger in SA had stabilised at a higher level than before the pandemic with as many as one in seven households — 15% indicating that a child had gone hungry in the previous week.

This was likely to worsen, said researchers, as inflation will erode child support grants, which rose only R10 this year.

The fifth wave of the survey was partly done before the last social relief of distress grant had ended.

HUNGER

The last social relief of distress grant, which was in place over the lockdown in 2020, was R350 a month, with payments beginning in June 2020 and ending in April.

It was available only to people who did not receive any other grant and was paid to almost 7-million people who registered and had bank accounts. It cost the government

about R2bn a month.

The debates on the size and shape of the new grant are far from settled, with proposals ranging from a payment of R595 a month — which is calculated to be the food poverty line — to R350, which was where the Treasury drew the line in the last set of discussions.

There is also debate about how long the grant should run for and whether it should be for a limited period or whether it would effectively be phasing in a targeted income grant. Consensus is tending towards the inclusion of 2.5-million child caregivers — who receive grants of R460 per child — this time.

The discussions come as the government prepares for the medium-term budget policy statement, or adjustment budget, in which hefty cuts to social services and programmes have been pencilled in, in an effort to get debt under control.

While revenue inflows are higher than was anticipated in February due to strong commodity demand and prices, there is no certainty as to how long that will go on.

While the Treasury is arguing for a limited period for the proposed grant so that more considered poverty interventions can be put in place for the long term and a revenue stream be found and committed, there is a view in other departments that it will not be possible to end it and it is effectively the beginning of the phasing-in of a basic grant.

Should the grant be set at R350 and paid to the 7-million beneficiaries who are already registered, it would cost the state about R40bn a year.

15% of households indicated that a child had gone hungry in the week before the latest Nids-Cram study