Johannesburg - Calls for a basic income grant (BIG) are gaining momentum again, with Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini saying it should be included in the country’s comprehensive social security plan, which is currently been drawn up by government.
Dlamini said that far too many people were locked out from benefiting from the government’s social welfare plans, while they did not earn enough to make a decent living.
“The state’s approach to social protection has been fragmented and narrow. The state focused on traditional social support measures such as child support grants, old age pensions; income support for those that could not work because of sickness,” said Dlamini, speaking at labour federation Fedusa’s national congress in Johannesburg on Thursday.
Cosatu’s call is in line with that of non-governmental organisations, which believe that the country can find the money for a BIG.
Isobel Frye, who heads up the Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute, has said before that had the basic income grant of R100, which was opposed by the government and former president Thabo Mbeki as being too expensive, been implemented in 2004, the poverty gap would have been reduced by more than 70 percent.
Mbeki's argument was that it was an insult to give R100 to the poor even though Zola Skweyiya, who was the social development minister at the time, supported it in his personal capacity.
Dlamini said the comprehensive social security plan should also include a revamped Unemployment Insurance Fund, a comprehensive retirement scheme and National Health Insurance.
“We have also called for a single national pension scheme with a bias towards a strong defined benefit model; the consolidation of all existing pension funds, both in the public and private sector, into a mandatory publicly-administered and managed pension scheme,” said Dlamini.
The federation also wants the retirement fund industry to transform, with a focus on uplifting black asset managers by providing bursaries and improving the black economic empowerment score card.
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