handouts
Jacqui Boulle
Since 1994 there has been much talk about developmental social welfare and the need to move away from grants and handouts to more sustainable programmes.
While this approach – which underpins the Department of Welfare’s campaign during welfare month – has had some success, its impact is limited: nearly half the poor in South Africa are still totally dependent on social security payments.
For instance, when Christina Momoza of Umtata was asked at the recent Speak Out on Poverty hearings what would happen if she did not receive her pension, she responded: “I would die of hunger. My daughters have children out of wedlock, so they are my burden. I need money for food and school. The pension feeds us.”
Research by the Department of Welfare shows that social grants, and the old age pension in particular, are essential in poverty alleviation.
Quite how one is to complete a move from assistance based on grants to developmental welfare is difficult to comprehend.
Even this vital umbilical cord ensuring the survival of so many is plagued with problems. People arrived at the poverty hearings by the thousands to discuss their problems accessing grants.
It is puzzling how such a situation is going to be moved in the direction the government is proposing, at least without acknowledging there is going to be a serious downside for those who need the current welfare system.
In the light of the very real plight of its citizens and dependants, the welfare department needs to think very carefully about where its emphasis should lie.
A good place to start would be a look into the department’s decision to limit backpay on grants to three months. The South African NGO Coalition and its members believe this measure is retrogressive, and have called for its review.
Over and above addressing the administrative problems in the system, a more comprehensive social security system is needed. The poverty hearings were confronted with examples of how many of the poor fall between the cracks in the welfare system.
Protection against unemployment is essential if we are to tackle crime. Youths and their parents spoke about crime as the only option in the absence of work or social security.
Instead of trying to develop new methods in a country where the need is too great, the hearings resulted in a call for resources to be prioritised to meet these needs.
The recent NGO week conference fleshed out this call. It called for the welfare department to convene a national forum to discuss concrete strategies for the delivery of a comprehensive social security system.
Some members even went so far as to call for a citizen grant to be provided to all South Africans. Such a grant, they said, would be non- discriminatory.
It would not be a disincentive to work as citizens would not lose the grant if they went to work. The allowance could be clawed back from the rich through taxes.
Such steps, whether imposed or not, reflect NGO thinking in regard to the needs of the poor, and the magnitude of those needs. To consider this will require a commitment from not just the welfare department but from the Cabinet, in the form of an increased budget vote to welfare.
This welfare month provides an opportunity for many of these problems to be addressed and discussed.
Jacqui Boulle is programmes and communications director of the South African NGO Coalition
September
Link to the day
25 18 11 04
25