DA would double child grant if it gets into power

The Democratic Alliance wants to double the child support grant if it gets into government next year.

Its leader‚ Mmusi Maimane‚ said the amount should be R800 to be sufficient to raise a child and fight malnutrition.

He was addressing the media in Tshwane about the party's proposed resolutions ahead of this weekend's elective conference.

"I think it is criminal in South Africa that one in four children die every day thanks to malnutrition. So whatever the social assistance package you put forward to South Africans‚ invariably does not address the question of malnutrition‚" said Maimane.

He said the party's resolution wanted to raise the amount to be in line with what it cost to raise a child.

"There have been a number of debates ... there were people who raised the debate about ‘can we put vouchers on the table?’ that will be debated‚" said Maimane.

He said others favoured a cash transfer.

"Even with including the increase this year to R410 it simply isn't sufficient as an assault on malnutrition‚" he added.

Maimane was accompanied by Gwen Ngwenya‚ the party's head of policy‚ who said the DA policy resolutions were to make a South Africa that worked for all.

"In order for us to get a South Africa that works ... we must articulate how we are going to get people to work‚ we secondly must articulate how we are going to create the environment for work and thirdly how we are going to ensure that nobody is left behind and out of work‚" said Ngwenya.

Maimane said as part of ensuring no one was left out of the job market‚ they planned to introduce an exemption certificate which would allow workers to get into jobs paying below minimum wage.

He said this was meant to get workers who had been unemployed for over a year to work even when their employer could not afford minimum wage.

Maimane said his party was also looking at creating a two-tier system at a higher education level where some universities like Wits and UCT would focus on research while others focused on skills development.