Existing social payments will be raised since more than 25 million South Africans rely on some type of financial support.
President Cyril Ramaphosa stated during his State of the Nation Address (Sona) that due to the growing cost of living, the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) Grant will continue to be given out. Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana is expected to comment on this later in the year.
7.8 million people depend on SRD handouts, and the government spends 60% of its budget on “the social wage” in order to “fight poverty and hunger.”
Ramaphosa said that efforts were being made to create a framework for targeted basic income support notwithstanding financial limitations.
In order to protect the most vulnerable from the impact of load shedding on skyrocketing food costs, he said the National Treasury was also thinking about “immediate measures.”
According to Ramaphosa, there is now a backlog of over one million title documents that need to be processed, amounting to around R242 billion in assets that “should be in the hands of South Africa’s poorest households.”
However, he promised that the backlog would be cleared out and that the title deed system would become “more efficient and more accessible.”
The Department of Public Works and Infrastructure has completed the transfer of 14,000 hectares of public property for housing since the Sona of last year.