Child grants: Mac defends Zuma’s wife

President Jacob Zuma's wife Nompumelelo Ntuli. Photo: Bongiwe Mchunu

President Jacob Zuma's wife Nompumelelo Ntuli. Photo: Bongiwe Mchunu

Published Feb 3, 2012

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President Jacob Zuma’s spokesman, Mac Maharaj, has come to the defence of one of the president’s wives, Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma, who had suggested that child support grants be scrapped and the money used instead for old-age pensions.

Maharaj said social grants remained the government’s most effective poverty alleviation programme.

The New Age reported on Thursday that Ntuli-Zuma, speaking at a function in KwaZulu-Natal on Wednesday, had said: “Most young teen mothers dump their babies with their grandmothers, while gallivanting around and abusing the grants money” on luxury items, including cellphone airtime.

She was echoing the sentiments of KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Agriculture Meshack Radebe, who had said he would write to Parliament to lobby for child support grants to be stopped.

Ntuli-Zuma also suggested that young mothers should be screened before they received the grants to establish whether they were using the money wisely or abusing the system.

On Thursday, Maharaj defended the First Lady’s comments, saying she had merely been “emphasising that the child support grant should not be abused and should be utilised for the purpose that they were intended, to support children, which is a standard government message”.

He noted that more than 10 million children received grants, which was “a major achievement for a developing country, especially a young democracy”.

In total, about 15 million South Africans get social assistance from the state.

While there is a perception that child support recipients misuse the money, research by, among others, the Black Sash and South African Institute of Race Relations has indicated that the majority of mothers use the grant responsibly.

Maharaj concurred, saying research over the years had shown that “the majority of child support grant beneficiaries use it appropriately and that there are children who would not go to school if it was not for social grants”.

But the government “continues to warn the beneficiaries against the abuse of the grants”.

Maharaj said this was why the Special Investigating Unit had been asked to investigate social grant fraud – to clean up the system. - Political Bureau

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