By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The ANC sub-committee on Social Transformation chair Zweli Mkhize says they will be implementing various interventions to alleviate the high cost of living for ordinary South Africans.
Mkhize addressing journalists at the party’s Luthuli House headquarters on Friday to unpack the ANC’s manifesto priority three plan, which deals with tackling the high cost of living.
ANC launched manifesto in Moses Mabhida Stadium, Durban, last week and the party had come up with six priority plans for the next five years and beyond to deal with poverty.
These include a jobs plan, re-industrialisation, reducing the cost of living, access to education, access to health as well as improving energy, rail and logistics.
“We shall address the cost of living to render everyday life more affordable for everyone including workers, the working-class poor, unemployed individuals, women-led households and the middle class by addressing the costs of essentials such as food, housing, healthcare, energy, transport and wages,” Mkhize said.
About 55.5% (30.3 million people) in South Africa are living in poverty based on the national upper poverty line of R992 while 13.8 million people (25%) are experiencing food poverty, according to World Bank data.
He said the high and unaffordable cost of living involves the most pressing bread-and-butter issues that affect millions of people living in informal settlements, townships, affluent suburbs as well as peri-urban and rural areas.
Mkhize said the ANC remained focused on eliminating poverty, unemployment and inequality, which are the legacy of colonialism and apartheid.
To achieve this several measures would be employed, “among others, lifting the social wage of every South African, particularly those who are living in poverty, are unemployed, live in child- and women-headed households and in rural or underserved areas”, Mkhize said.
“These measures have, over several years, resulted in significant gains in which South Africa has reduced poverty rates from 71.1% in 1993 to under 56% in 2020. Those millions who have benefited from the social wage and government programmes are the ‘Tinstwalos’ that the president spoke of during the State of the Nation address [Sona].”
Meanwhile the ANC’s NEC member Lindiwe Zulu says the process of transferring the R350 unemployment grant to a basic income grant has yet to be concluded.
“Moving SRD grant to basic income grant must not be seen in isolation of the overall comprehensive social security for South Africans in general,” she said.
Zulu, who is also the social development minister, briefed the media on Friday on Priority 3 of ANC’s election manifesto, which outlined its plan to tackle the cost of living.
During the briefing, she also confirmed that they will continue to pay the R350 grant.
She said once the process was done, they would revert back to the ANC and the social transformation committee for way forward.
Last weekend, the ANC launched its manifesto at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.
Zulu explained that research was conducted on the basic income matter in finding solutions at dealing with a wide range of issues including growing the economy and increasing the employment of in communities.
She said this was done with a focus on young people because they are the majority in receiving grants.
“We are not only looking at paying these grants but we are part and parcel of a government that looks for solution to growing of the economy and linking the grant beneficiaries to economic opportunities,” she maintained.
She highlighted that their focus is with the most vulnerable and that the ANC has sustained the grants since 1994.
“When we took power, there were times where the economy was not necessarily doing well but one thing the ANC was clear about was that you cannot expose our people consistently to vulnerability and not respond to that,” she said.
She added that they have expanded grants broadly from the elderly to people living with disabilities and child support grant.
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