Child support disappoints

The lines of plastic buckets at two of the five taps that provide water for the 7 000-odd people living in Kennedy Road informal settlement lengthen with the shadows of the afternoon sun. Parents returning from work and children from school wait patiently for the water.

For Thembi Nxumalo (55), it is her chance to take a rest. “I only have the R200 [child-support grant] for Jabu, my 10-year-old daughter, otherwise I carry water to people. One rand a bucket, and if four people ask me for water then I can buy bread,” says Nxumalo.

Since her husband died three years ago, the formidable Nxumalo has been feeding and clothing Jabu and her brothers, Sihle (21) and Spamandla (17), on a single child-support grant.

When told that earlier in the day Finance Minister Trevor Manuel had announced a staggered increase in the child-support grant of R10 in April and another R10 in October, bringing the total to R220 a month, Nxumalo appears resigned. “I’m grateful the government gives me R200. If it’s going to be R220, I’m still grateful. But as soon as I get the money, it all goes on food,” she says.

Sitting in her single-room shack lit by a solitary candle, Nxumalo frets that she hasn’t paid Jabu’s R250 school fees yet, and that her daughter’s uniform was bought by a teacher at Palmiet Primary School.

Would it have helped if Manuel had extended the qualification age for child-support grants from 14 to 18 — making her 17-year-old son eligible — rather than only to 15-year-olds from January next year? “Another R200? I would have spent it on food. Cabbage and mpupu [mielie meal] is very expensive now,” she says matter-of-factly.

Informal bicycle repairman Nkosinathi Nxumalo (no relation) was disappointed with the limitation of the extension. “My daughter, Philile, is bright and I don’t want her to leave school, but education is expensive and she will turn 15 in November,” he says, “too early for another year of the grant.”

The father, who supports Philile; 11-month-old baby Ntando; his wife, Thembilile; and her sister, 14-year-old Zanele, on about R1 000 a month, says he shelled out a combined R700 for a set of uniforms for Philile and Zanele.

Philile’s face sparkles with a bright smile when she talks of her favourite subjects, like natural science. She wants to study dentistry once her schooling is complete.

“Education is important, but expensive. It costs R16 a day [R640 a month] for Philile and Zanele to go to school in Mayville,” says Nxumalo, sighing.

With Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya recently intimating that the child-support grant would eventually be extended to include children up to the age of 18 — and a resolution taken at the ANC’s recent Polokwane conference calling for a progressive age extension to the grant — hopes had been raised in the child advocacy sector.

Manuel’s capping of the grant at 15 was met with criticism from NGOs and lobby groups.

Black Sash national director Marcella Naidoo said the organisation was “disappointed” about Manuel’s decision not to extend the grant to 18-year-olds: “The future potential of 2,5-million vulnerable young South Africans between the ages of 15 and 18 will remain in jeopardy as they battle to complete their schooling and find work in our skills-driven economy.”

Karen Allan, project coordinator at the Alliance for Children Entitled to Social Security, an umbrella body for 1 300 South African child-sector organisations, said: “The ages 15 to 18 are the very age when vulnerable children find it difficult to continue schooling. You’re essentially sending them down exploitative labour paths because there are no economic safety nets to help them. Children will drop out and end up as child labourers.”

In his budget speech, Manuel pledged a further R12,3-billion over the next three years towards social security spending and said that, with about 12,5-million people drawing social security grants, R73,5-billion will be spent on social welfare in the next year.

But Naidoo was unimpressed: “Social assistance remains at 3,3% of the gross domestic product in the medium term. There is no significant increase in grant expenditure.”

Increases in grants have seen disability and old-age payouts increase by R70 to R940 a month from April, while foster-care grants increase to R650 a month. The pensionable age for men will drop from 65 to 63 this year, to 61 next year, and will be the same as women’s pension-drawing age of 60 in 2010.

Manuel said the “eligibility criteria or conditions” for child-support grants will be reviewed, and there is the possibility that regular school attendance and “health requirements” will be monitored. This, Manuel said, is “aimed at reinforcing the responsibilities of care-givers towards benefiting children”.

But this move was also met with scepticism. “Our grant system already excludes people. Using access to one right, like education, to determine access to another, like social welfare, just shouldn’t be done, especially with the problems we face with service delivery. Why punish a child because he or she may not have access to proper healthcare?” Naidoo asked.

Manuel also announced that “the qualifying income threshold for child-support grants [currently at R9 600 a year in urban areas and R13 200 a year in rural/informal dwellings] will be raised and the means-test formula that applies to the old-age grant and the disability grant will be revised”.

The move was “welcomed” by the Johannesburg Child Welfare Society, which described the current means test as “harsh and outdated”. The means test is an evaluation of the income and assets of grant applicants to determine their qualification for government assistance.

The revisions to the means test will be fleshed out when Skweyiya tables the amendments to the Social Assistance Act and its regulations in Parliament.

Manuel said an interdepartmental task team is working to develop the framework for a new contributory social security system. The task team intends to consult the National Economic Development and Labour Council to discuss the matter.