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Beneficiaries of the Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress Grant will be pleased to know that National Treasury has moved to allocate an additional R34 billion to aid the continuation of the programme for another year.
The much-contested grant was supposed to come to an end next year, but the extension pushes that back to March 2025.
In the statement, Treasury noted that the extension over the medium term represents a temporary solution in the wake of government’s review of the entire social grant system.
The extension of the grant comes after the National Treasury, in the 2023 Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) it tabled on Wednesday, mapped out South Africa’s grave struggle with debt.
Since its implementation, there have been many grievances shared about state inefficiencies in paying out the grants to beneficiaries on time as well as the reduced pool of recipients.
Further, previous reports have indicated displeasure from civil society and beneficiaries with the possibility of the grant coming to an end, opening up a bigger conversation around the establishment of a basic income grant to meet the country’s social needs.
As it stands, Treasury has revised its social protection bill upwards to R280.1 billion for 2023/24, with expectations being that expenditure will continue increasing over the medium term and peak at R326.9 billion in 2026/27.
Social protection is one of the major expenditure items on the government’s R1.16 trillion revised social wage bill for 2023/24.
Despite the move to extend the grant, Treasury does not seem keen to keep the grant around for much longer.
In MTBPS documents, Treasury noted that because the fiscal environment has weakened considerably since the budget review in February, government will need new revenue sources or reprioritise other spending items to continue offering support.
