BASIC INCOME GRANT: ‘DISCUSSIONS SHOULD CONTINUE,’ SAYS PRESIDENT

BASIC INCOME GRANT: ‘DISCUSSIONS SHOULD CONTINUE,’ SAYS PRESIDENT

• 29 January 2024
• Social Development
• SA Legal Academy

‘There is … a strong case for a permanent form of targeted income support grant for the unemployed within our fiscal constraints.’ President Cyril Ramaphosa made this remark in his capacity as ANC president during an opening address at the ruling party’s 26-30 January 2024 national executive committee lekgotla. According to Ramaphosa, ‘it has been estimated that the social relief of distress grant in its current form has reduced the number of people living in true poverty by at least two million’. On that basis, in his view, ‘discussions should continue … about what we have termed the basic income grant’.

In a written reply last November to a question from the ANC’s Dikgang Stock, Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu outlined the advantages and disadvantages of various funding models for the grant. At the time, her thinking appeared to be that a form of ‘progressive’ personal income tax – taking ‘a greater contribution from … high-income earners than … lower income earners’ – would ensure ‘a more sustainable revenue source’. However, the Minister did not ‘press for a basic income grant … funded from personal income tax’, as Wyndham Hartley reported in Legalbrief Today. She simply drew attention to the advantages of such an approach.

• ANC president’s address (his remarks on the basic income grant begin at 13:13)
• Minister’s November 2023 written reply to a question about funding model options for the grant 

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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