3 Aril 2025
The government is considering converting the social relief of distress grant (SRD) to a job seeker’s grant.
This is according to finance minister Enoch Godongwana, who was responding to questions in the National Assembly on Thursday with other ministers in the cabinet’s economics cluster.
He told MPs the National Treasury and the department of labour and employment were working on a review of the SRD grant to determine its long-term fate, with a possible conversion to a job seekers’ grant.
This was the first time the minister appeared in the House since his contentious budget, which includes a 0.5 percentage point VAT hike, was passed, prompting government of national unity partner the DA to take legal action.
The atmosphere in the plenary was icy, featuring points of tension such as electricity and energy minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa accusing deputy speaker and DA MP Annelie Lotriet of cutting him off during his replies though he claimed not to have exhausted his time.
EFF MP Omphile Maotwe challenged Godongwana to announce an “unemployment grant” to assist the unemployed youth with the cost-of-living crisis as they look for work.
“We are in the situation today because for the past 10 years unemployment levels have risen to high levels. We are speaking today with expanded unemployment sitting at 42% and National Treasury has no plan even in this budget that was tabled this year or even an appetite to tell us how to address these unemployment levels,” she charged.
She asked the minister when the Treasury would implement an unemployment grant for working age South Africans, adding the government must create opportunities for people and cannot leave the youth loitering in the streets vulnerable to crime.
“It’s the first time I’ve heard of a proposal called [the] unemployment grant. What I’ve heard is proposals around the risk income grant, around a number of other things. The unemployment one I have not heard of,” the minister replied.
In her original question, Maotwe asked Godongwana whether the Treasury was conducting a review of the SRD grant to replace it with an unemployment grant and his position regarding the view that Treasury outsourced the specified review to a consultant.
Godongwana clarified that the Government Technical Advisory Centre was supporting the Treasury and the department of labour and employment in its review of the economic labour market.
Source: Timeslive
