The Department of Social Development’s introduction of the Sassa R350 grant has been praised as a significant government response to the country’s socio-economic challenges. However, one of South Africa’s human rights organizations believes that the department can do a lot better based on their survey finding. Here is what they have had to say.
It is well worth noting that the Sassa R350 grant has aided in bridging the country’s worsening poverty gap among those who are financially vulnerable. But the efficacy of its disbursement has been called into question by human rights organisations such as Black Sash.
The effectiveness of the Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress Grant in easing hunger and extreme poverty has sparked calls by Black Sash and others for the state to create a permanent system of Basic Income Support for persons aged 18 to 59.
The organisation’s Executive Director, Rachel Bukasa said that the first and immediate flaw in the implementation was Sassa’s lack of effective communication to its grant applicants.
With regards to applying for the grant itself, there was a lack of information that existed where we found that our case study’s participants had to rely on each other in the community to get some information instead of the information coming rather from Sassa or the concerned parties.
She adds that this has also been due to a lack of clarity with regards to beneficiaries or applicants who have had their applications approved and those who have not. Something that they also mostly had to rely on each other for, according to the annual report.
Furthermore, despite being sympathetic to the circumstances of grant recipients, the National Treasury Department has also warned against the heavy allocation of the national budget towards social security.
In response, Black Sash says that there is a lack of proper understanding among those in privileged positions, about the extent of existing poverty levels among the country’s different classes of low-income earning population.
“There are different classes of vulnerable people that have to take care of children for example the child support grant, disability grant, and old age grant. Those are specific classes of vulnerable people.” She explained
She goes on to say that the state must take care of that vulnerable group and so the fact that the state is doing that does not absolve them from the responsibility of taking care of the unemployed.
