If approved by Cabinet, the proposed `dole’ system could be linked to the new Welfare Payment and Information Service, expected to be up and running in 2003. Barry Streek reports
The government has been committed to the introduction of a “dole” system in South Africa since 1997 but the estimated price tag of about R7-billion, mooted last weekend by Minister of Welfare and Population Development Zola Skweyiya, is the first time anyone has put a cost to its policy on the payments.
It is also part of an initiative to improve operational efficiency in the payment of social assistance grants with the establishment of the new Welfare Payment and Information Service (WPIS) in partnership with a private sector partner.
The government’s social assistance programme is already big business – during the current financial year, the welfare department will pay out R17-billion to 2,9-million beneficiaries, of whom 1,8- million are old-age pensioners.
The government’s commitment to a dole system was spelled out in a White Paper in 1997. “There will be universal access to an integrated and sustainable social security system,” it stated then.
“Every South African should have a minimum income, sufficient to meet basic subsistence needs, and should not have to live below minimum acceptable standards,” the White Paper said.
It also said the government was committed to “the provision of a comprehensive national social security system, and the government’s Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy [Gear]recognises the importance of a broad social security net comprising social payments and targeted welfare services”.
So, Skweyiya’s statement last week that his department was investigating the feasibility of an income for the most vulnerable citizens, those living under the poverty datum line, was in line with existing government policy.
What was new was the estimated cost of between R6-billion and R7-billion, which if accepted, would push the government’s social assistance programme up by about 40% to R24-billion.
“We are sitting on a time bomb of poverty and social disintegration,” Skweyiya warned in the Sunday Times.
This echoed his statement in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) on October 20 last year when he said: “We pay beneficiaries of social grants or take in applications under trees, in goods containers, in offices with no electricity, no computers or photocopiers. This is a recipe for fraud, inefficiency, low morale and bad behaviour by officials.
“Our beneficiaries are the poorest of the poor. They are old-age pensioners or persons with disabilities. Every month they have to endure the humiliation of long queues, unscrupulous loan sharks and arrogant officials. This we cannot tolerate.”
Skweyiya said part of the solution was the completely new WPIS to be established by 2003 with a business partner from the private sector. The Cabinet has approved this initiative and a tender will be published early this year.
If the Cabinet approves Skweyiya’s wider plans and the budget allocation for them, the dole system should also be implemented around 2003.
The WPIS will revolutionise social assistance payments, particularly in the rural areas.
Both Skweyiya and his predecessor, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, have said the system will involve the roll-out of high- quality payment facilities, especially to rural and remote rural areas, including physical and electronic cash services and partial withdrawal of benefits.
They will provide access to grant payments eight hours a day, seven days a week, as well as value-added services such as interest-bearing savings mechanisms and other micro-finance services and access to information on the full range of welfare services offered in South Africa.
There will also be high-level financial and management controls to minimise fraud and corruption, including tracking mechanisms to ensure early identification of fraud and promote immediate action.
WPIS centres will also be linked to the Home Affairs National Identification Service for online checking of vital registration information, such as births and deaths, and provide the rapid processing of applications.
In this way, the proposed social assistance “dole” payments, if approved by the Cabinet which agreed in principle to the new system more than two years ago, will be linked to the introduction of the WPIS system aimed at bringing a quasi-banking system which has never been seen before in deprived and rural areas.
Skweyiya told the NCOP last year that “social assistance in the form of grants remains one of the most extensive forms of redistribution in South Africa”.
In effect, the R7-billion price tag for a “dole” system may indeed not be a high price to pay, particularly if it is coupled to the new WPIS system and it reaches the poorest of the poor – the unemployed young and handicapped people in the rural areas, particularly women.