While addressing a social cluster on lockdown regulations, the Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu recently said the issue of grants to fend for the vulnerable in South Africa. She also gave her word that the government was doing all it could about the issue.
The basic grant would cater for the ages of 18 and 59. According to Lindiwe Zulu,the issue was being considered in view of the South African Social Security Agency’s (Sassa) legislated mandate, as well as the primary mandate of the National Development Agency.
The Minister also said that the grant would not be implemented soon considering other things that first had to be taken care of. Zulu says “There are quite a number of things that we have to do and systems that we need to put in place to make sure that it covers the correct people.”
The success of the Basic Income Grant (BIG) will be individually targeted to lifting individual South Africans out of poverty. In South Africa, the most vulnerable groups are between 18 and 24 and the elderly between 50 and 59.
“The BIG will simplify coverage and ease of grant administration. Granted that our current social security grants’ system does not permit universal coverage, the current proposal will help realise the government’s broader social security reform environment,” concluded Zulu.
