The welfare minister insists new, leaner grants for poor children must be made for the sake of equality. But critics say she is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Marion Edmunds reports
THE Cabinet may ram the government’s controversial child grant system through Parliament by proclamation, if there is not enough time to get a Bill through by August 1 – the date set for its implementation, according to Minister of Welfare Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi.
Such a move would limit opportunities for protest against the controversial plan. It was severely criticised this week in public hearings in Parliament by non-governmental organisations, church groups, unions and two statutory government watchdogs, the Gender Commission and the Human Rights Commission. They argue that it provides too little assistance for too few poor children.
The Black Sash’s Alison Tilley says she is outraged that a proclamation is even being considered: “I am speechless. This would be a subversion of the democratic process and it is worrying that the executive is prepared to override the legislature and civil society on an issue as crucial as this.”
The criticism of the grant system is underpinned by concern that the Welfare Department lacks the administrative competence to implement the system so soon. But Fraser-Moleketi stood fast by her plan this week, despite the public buffeting by groups that would, in many other instances, support her principles.
The plan was drawn from recommendations by the Lund committee, whose report was accepted in principle by the Cabinet earlier this year.
“There is no return on this issue,” Fraser- Moleketi said on Thursday, while conceding that the choice the government had made on welfare spending was painful, even to her.
Fraser-Moleketi’s department is to set up a system to pay care-givers earning under R800 a month R75 per dependent child up to six years old. The grant will be underpinned by law, which will undermine the current legislation and grant system. She hopes to reach 30% of the nation’s poorest children.
What makes the new welfare plan politically difficult for Fraser-Moleketi is that its implementation depends on the phasing out of an old system, the State Maintenance Grant. This currently benefits about 350 000 women and their children, mostly coloured and Indian people in the Western Cape and Kwazulu-Natal.
This system carries the taint of apartheid because black women were originally excluded from its net. The new government deracialised it last year, but implementation has remained racially skewed and it has failed to reach South Africa’s poorest.
The grant has been relatively high, with a maximum parent allowance of R430 plus R135 per child under18 years for up to two children, paid monthly.
Opposition parties, particularly the National Party, are likely to exploit the phasing out of this grant as a sign of the African National Congress’s disregard for poor coloureds and Indians in the run-up to the elections in 1999.
The scrapping of the current level of grants also swells discontent within the ANC alliance that the government is selling out on its welfare responsibilities to meet targets set by the growth, employment and redistribution strategy. But the government does not have enough funds to extend the current payments to all eligible mothers.
Hence the need for Fraser-Moleketi to take the “painful decision” now and get a new, leaner system working quickly, with as little negative publicity as possible.
Opportunities for public debate up until this week have been minimal, and the public parliamentary hearings had to be pushed for. Not even the ANC parliamentary caucus has had the opportunity to air its views, although it may be on the agenda in a fortnight.
Sources have indicated that many ANC parliamentarians, particularly those from NGO and development backgrounds, are finding the welfare cuts hard to swallow and want to use the current dissent to lobby for a larger slice of the cake for welfare.
Ironically, it is the business community that is praising Fraser-Moleketi for the steps she is taking to make ends meet.