Struggling SA women are eating less, borrowing money, not repaying their debt and selling anything they can to keep their families fed.
This is according to the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group (PEJDG), which on Wednesday released its latest household affordability index report.
It tracked food prices at 44 supermarkets and 30 butcheries in Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, Pietermaritzburg and Springbok.
According to the data collated the cost of the average household food basket increased by R198,64 between September and January, now costing R4,051.20.
Mervyn Abrahams, PEJDG’s programme coordinator, said SA women who spoke to data collectors were able to keep their families fed with stokvel payments they received.
“Most stokvels survived 2020. Women tell us they were able to carry on making payments by sacrificing their own health and nutrition needs and using some of the social grant top-ups on child support and old-age grants.
We hustle. We eat less so our children can eat. We find someone, anyone, to borrow money from and then find a way not to repay them.
— Umlazi woman
“This year the food will finish sooner because families must share food with those whose food has run out and because the start of the new school year has been delayed. The grace period will end in February. After this time, women tell us, things are going to be very hard, as many more families are going to find themselves very hungry.
“Women tell us they recognise that the pandemic will be with us for another year and they are on their own now.”
Women will delve deep into their resources and talents, their relationships and connections and find a way to survive.
“What can we do? We hustle. We eat less so our children can eat. We find someone, anyone, to borrow money from and then find a way not to repay them. Everybody is hustling to sell something, make something, grow something, beg and borrow ... Start something, anything, to survive. There is no rest, there is no peace,” said one Umlazi woman.
According to the household affordability index report, the main foods that drove higher increases in the food basket over the past five months were staple foods including maize meal, rice, flour, sugar, bread and oil.
According to the report, high levels of inflation on these foods are problematic for several reasons:
- These core foods must be bought regardless of price escalations.
- The higher cost of core staple foods means less money is available to buy other foods that are important for proper nutrition: eggs, dairy, meats and fish (essential for protein, calcium and iron), and vegetables and fruit (essential for vitamins, minerals, and fibre). That has negative consequences for overall household health and wellbeing and the ability to resist illness.
- The higher rand-value cost of a basket of food has become unaffordable. It has breached the level of the national minimum wage, which in January 2021 is R3,321.60.
“The R350 Covid Relief Grant, which is so little, but shockingly so important, ends in four days’ time.
“Government has chosen to withdraw support in the middle of a pandemic when almost nothing has gone back to normal and almost everything has got worse.
“The vast majority of South Africans now face the second, and possibly third and fourth, waves of Covid-19 with less money in our pockets than we had at the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
“We have no or little savings, almost no capacity to absorb shocks. We have lost our jobs, our wages have been cut, we work fewer hours. At the same time food prices, electricity prices and transport prices continue to climb. People we love are dying.
“How is it possible that we allowed government to stop providing relief and not intervene to reduce the cost of expenses, viz regulate and bring down the prices of core staple foods, to subsidise public transport and to cut the cost of electricity?” asked Abrahams.
“If the state does not act now and act big to spend and to support those in need, it is likely that our post-pandemic economic recovery will be slower and we will find ourselves in a deeper crisis post the pandemic.”
