This news aggregator site highlights South African labour news from a wide range of internet and print sources. Each posting has a synopsis of the source article, together with a link or reference to the original. Postings cover the range of labour related matters from industrial relations to generalist human resources.
BL Premium reports that even though government is in the grip of a fiscal crisis, Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu is calling for the urgent introduction of a basic income grant to replace the Covid-19 social relief of distress grant when the latter expires at the end of April.
On Friday, all the major opposition parties expressed support for the idea, in a mini-plenary debate in the National Assembly. "We need to find pathways towards introducing a basic income grant, to mobilise for a social compact. We believe it is possible," the minister told MPs. The ANC has long supported a basic income grant. So have its alliance partner, Cosatu, civil society organisations and opposition parties. Most have voiced support for the introduction of a grant that caters for the unemployed between 18 years and 59 years old who do not qualify for social grants. But the tight fiscal position in which government finds itself — with mounting debt and ever-increasing debt service costs coupled with coronavirus pandemic spending — has required deep cuts to government expenditure that will make a basic income grant hard to implement. There is much concern about the removal of the Covid-19 grant given the widespread poverty in SA, which has been made worse by the joblessness caused by lockdowns to fight the disease. It was no longer a question of whether to introduce a basic income grant, Zulu said, but ones of how and when.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Linda Ensor at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page