In the Black Sash we are keenly aware of the global economic crisis, and respect the fact that the Finance Minister Trevor Manual has had to perform a balancing act to manage competing interests and needs.

In fact, the Black Sash believes that this Budget is arguably the most important in the history of our democracy, in that it shows how we as a society deal with one another at a time of crisis. In this light we commend the Minister’s rhetoric, which states that his first guiding principle has been the protection of the poor. 

We are concerned, however, that this principle has not been carried through in several vital respects.

The Child Support Grant

We find it unacceptable that the Minister has not committed funding to extend the Child Support Grant to the age of 18 – reneging on the promise made by the President in his State of the Nation address just last week.

This, despite the fact that he says there is "compelling evidence that the child support grant has contributed significantly to reducing child poverty.” Indeed, civil society has presented much such evidence over the past few years that social grants remain the single most effective intervention into poverty.

We do not understand why the Minister is only giving the extension of the Child Support Grant “consideration” at a time when a commitment is what is urgently needed by the nearly two-and-a-half million children who fall through the security net just as they enter the vulnerable years of their adolescence.

A mother in a village in the North West dared last year to take the Minister of Finance to court where she called for the extension of the Child Support Grant for all poor children under 18 years. In the absence of the Minister of Finance committing to an extension, the Black Sash calls on the Pretoria High Court to safeguard poor children’s constitutional rights to equality and social security.

Grant increases

The 5.5% increase for old age pensions and the 4.5% increase in the child support grant are substantially below the current inflation of 10.3% (CPIX December 2008). Worse than this, it can never provide for the increased pressures on households that the global economic crisis will bring. 

One in three South African households eke out their survival without a worker in the home. With a conservative estimate of unemployment at 23.2% (more like 40% when ‘discouraged’ workers are included) this leaves millions of able-bodied adults dependent on the grant money brought into the home by their most vulnerable members (the children and the aged).

Unemployment 

The Minister has quoted Ben Okri – “But if we refuse to face any of our awkward and deepest truths, then sooner or later, we are going to have to become deaf and blind.” Have we, as a society, become so used to extraordinary levels of unemployment that we no longer hear or see it as the appalling affront to human rights that it represents? 

The Black Sash is deeply concerned that no new provision has been made to protect workers who are being retrenched in the face of the global financial crisis. 

Communities, already mired in poverty, cannot afford for one more person to lose their job. And yet, we know that however creatively government and business attempts to deal with this problem, there will be job losses. 

We are disappointed that the Minister has not announced any convincing plan to protect these families. He has not provided income support for the unemployed. He has not concretised the President’s commitment to rolling out increased levels of the Social Relief of Distress Grant (SROD). In fact the SROD did not feature in his speech at all. This, despite the fact that communities are currently experiencing major conflicts as the limited provision for SROD is depleted, demonstrating again the huge gaps in our Social Security provision.

While we refute claims that the Expanded Public Works Programme’s (EPWP’s) will create jobs, we acknowledge the potential of such programmes to intervene against poverty. However, we share the Minister’s apparent lack of conviction that they will reach the ambitious targets set. Desperate people should not have to wait for inefficient bureaucracies to receive urgently needed income support. 

Social solidarity

We cannot forget that our national crisis of poverty and unemployment pre-dates the global financial crisis.  

The Black Sash is concerned that the budget remains “deaf and blind” to the unemployed of our country – the millions who have been told for fourteen years – to wait for growth to trickle down into jobs, have once again been told to wait while we manage the global crisis and a shrinking economy.

There has been a negligible adjustment to the tax regime where we have called for sacrifices by privileged members of our society, who by international comparison, have huge wealth and a very high standard of living.

We are disappointed that the Minister has not challenged South Africans to exercise maximum national solidarity in this time of global crisis, in favour of the poor.

Sarah Nicklin
Media Officer
Black Sash