Social grants will disappear if the corrupt ANC is re-elected
9 January 2024
ANC corruption poses an existential threat to the continued payment of social grants to millions of vulnerable South Africans. Yesterday, the party’s cowardly President, Cyril Ramaphosa, told a lie with his claim that social grants were “likely to disappear” when the ANC loses the fast-approaching 2024 election.
The truth is the exact opposite of Ramaphosa’s claim, which reeks of growing desperation as the ANC realises that it has as little as five months left in government. The single greatest threat to the sustainability of our country’s social grants system, is Ramaphosa’s ANC. For nearly three decades, they have looted and pillaged the public resources required to continue funding social grants. As the money runs out, the ANC has already been forced to cut the budget for critical services like education and healthcare.
In fact, due to incessant ANC looting, Ramaphosa’s government is already dismantling social grants. The child support grant – which accounts for 71% of all expenditure on grants – has dramatically declined in real terms over the past decade. Year-after-year, the ANC has increased this grant by as little as 2% per year, while inflation has averaged 5.2% over the past ten years. The ANC has thus been systematically cutting the Child Support Grant by up to 3 percentage points per year for at least a decade.
Researchers at the University of Cape Town recently confirmed that the ANC’s 2023 budget “is taking from the mouths of babies…After years of below inflation increases, the child support grant has fallen to 72% of the official food poverty line. The planned 2023 increase of only R10 represents a 2% increase in the grant amount…It will be substantially below inflation. Food inflation year-on-year was 12% by 3 September 2022. The grant will buy less, and the gap between the grant and the food poverty line will widen further.”