South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) calls on the government to introduce a R1500 unemployment grant saying the R350 currently being rolled out is inadequate.
The R350 was introduced in 2020 as the Covid-19 Social Relief DIstress grant to alleviate poverty when many people and small businesses lost their incomes because of lockdown. The grant has been extended until 2024.
South Africa’s unemployment rate is amongst the highest in the world at 32,9 % registered in the first quarter of 2023. The federation made this call during its pickets outside the Department of Social Development in Pretoria on Thursday.
Saftu spokesperson Trevor Shaku said they want the government to introduce an unemployment income grant because of the rising cost of living and sky-rocketing food inflation.
“We have gathered here today to voice our discontent with rising levels of unemployment and to also put forward what we think could be interim solutions to the problem. In our view which also forms part of our demands is a basic income grant and job guarantees.
“Why we are particularly demanding these two is because we don’t think that the social relief grant is sufficient to give our people a decent living, especially those who are unemployed and the poorly paid workers.
“The R350 per month is equivalent to R11,11 per day.This on its own shows the inadequacy especially if you compare it to the cost of living in the country. The price of brown bread is around R16-R17 which shows you already that R350 cannot give any unemployed person and poorly paid worker a decent living,” said Shaku.
“So we are demanding that they should introduce a basic income grant at the upper bound poverty line or above the upper bound poverty line which stands at R1500. If we factor in the inflation pressures over the past two years we identified R1 500 as the tentative amount for the introduction of the basic income grant,” he added.
