BL Premium reports that President Cyril Ramaphosa has come to the aid of SA’s desperately poor by extending the Covid-19 social relief of distress grant of R350 a month for unemployed adults for a year to end-March 2023.

It is estimated that the extension will cost the fiscus R50bn, expenditure made possible by the mineral resources boom that is expected to raise the 2021/2022 tax revenue target by R200bn. Details will be provided by Enoch Godongwana, the finance minister, when he tables the 2022/2023 budget on 23 February. The grant benefits about 10-million people. Addressing the nation in his sixth state of the nation (SONA) address in Cape Town’s City Hall on Thursday night, Ramaphosa said the government would continue consultations on a replacement for the grant.  The President said that between now and end-March, government would “engage in broad consultations and detailed technical work to identify the best options to replace this grant. Any future support must pass the test of affordability, and must not come at the expense of basic services or at the risk of unsustainable spending. It remains our ambition to establish a minimum level of support for those in greatest need.” While there has been much debate — including among Ramaphosa’s own economic advisers — about the introduction of a permanent basic income grant (BIG), at its meeting this week the cabinet decided against that for now because of the absence of a funding mechanism.

Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Linda Ensor at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)

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