Poor living in hope as grant ends

CONTINUING the Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress Grant will go some way towards meeting the needs of the poorest South Africans.

Although not much at R350, for those with no other source of income, it has been worth the lengthy queuing to receive it. The grant is due to come to an end next month.

A campaign has been launched to try to persuade the government not to stop payments until there is a system to assist those who have no other source of income.

According to the group, Pay the Grants, of the nine million who applied, less than half have benefited from the payments, while others who should not have received the money have done so.

While it is clear that the government does not have a huge money chest in the post-Covid period, the poor have felt the impact of lockdown more than most and are in need of sustained relief.

The trouble is that the word “relief” has come to be mentioned in the same breath as words such as “inefficiency” and “corruption”, and it is clear that much of the money intended to assist those in need found its way into the wrong hands.

If grants are to make a meaningful difference, they have to be well administered: one cannot have a situation where people employed in the government or those who are deceased qualify.

As we saw last week in the report by Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu, there have been major flaws and corruption in the allocation of funding made available for the distress caused by the pandemic.

Makwetu, at the president’s request, audited 16 initiatives to the value of R147.4 billion, including delivery of personal protective equipment and the UIF Covid-19 Ters benefit.

Relevant here are his findings on the social relief grant. He said the application process was flawed as it included little in the way of verification. As a result, money was paid to people not technically in distress.

He flagged payments to more than 30 000 beneficiaries that required investigation. Whether that money will ever be repaid is anyone’s guess. Meanwhile, the poor live on in hope that they will not be forgotten.