Barry Streek
The move towards the payment of a monthly R100 basic income grant gained momentum this week when 12 non-government and religious organisations handed over a memorandum to Vivienne Taylor, the chairperson of the Department of Social Development committee investigating the issue.
The principle of a basic income was endorsed in a government White Paper in 1997 and the concept has received support from a wide variety of groups including the Democratic Alliance. Key problems dogging the proposed scheme are the financing and implementation aspects, matters that are being investigated by the Taylor committee.
Minister of Social Development Zola Skweyiya said last year it would cost the country an extra R7-billion a year, but this week the civil society groups estimated it would cost between R20-billion and R25-billion. Two researchers probing the matter, Claudia and Dick Haarman, put a R40-billion price tag on it.
However, the need for a basic income grant seems overwhelming: “At least 22-million people in South Africa well over half the population live in abject poverty. On average they survive on R144 a person a month,” the 12 organisations said in memorandum.
“A Basic Income Grant would provide rapid and sustained relief to all South Africans by providing everyone with a minimum level of income, enabling the nation’s poorest households to better meet their basic needs, stimulating equitable economic development, promoting community stability, and affirming and supporting the inherent dignity of all,” the memo stated.
The memo was endorsed by a wide range of NGOs including the Alliance for Children’s Entitlement to Social Security, the Black Sash, the Child Health Policy Institute, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), the Development Resources Centre, the Ecumenical Service for Socio-Economic Transformation, the Gender Advocacy Programme, the Community Law Centre at the University of the Western Cape, the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference’s parliamentary liaison office, the South African Council of Churches, the South African National ngo Coalition and the Treatment Action Campaign.
Government policy on the issues is contained in the 1997 White Paper, which says: “Every South African should have a minimum income, sufficient to meet basic subsistence needs, and should not have to live below the minimum acceptable standards.”
Research by the Haarmans, commissioned by Cosatu, concluded that a basic income grant of R100 would triple “the average per capita amount potentially going into poor households, from R46 under the current system to R120”.
It is still not clear whether the grant would be directed to the millions unemployed or to the whole adult population, in which case the Pay-As-You-Earn system would be the method of taxation.
However, until the Taylor committee proposals have been considered by the Cabinet, and a decision on the financing of the proposed system is taken, the introduction of a basic income grant will remain theoretical.
ENDS
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