CAIPHUS KGOSANA | SA urgently needs a decisive answer to the BIG question

Thabang* lives in Atteridgeville, west of Pretoria. The 41-year-old and his wife Mantwa* (34) lost their jobs three and a half years ago when the medium-size firm they were working for in Randburg suffered financial losses and retrenched en masse. These were not high-paying, but junior admin posts that were available for anyone with a matric certificate, back when the economy grew with positive numbers.

When they were working, the couple rented a place to stay. They could afford enough food and other basic amenities to last a month for a family of three. The remainder of their earnings got swallowed up by taxi fares to and from work.

Retrenchment not only left them jobless, it shattered their lives. Employment in the semi-formal sector didn’t come with a retirement fund option, even though they toiled for years. When the inevitable happened, the company bid them farewell with a three month severance pay package.

They have moved back to the home Thabang grew up in, bequeathed to the family by his late grandmother. It is shared with other siblings who are unemployed or make a living in the informal sector. When they trekked back home, Thabang and Mantwa moved into one of the many shoebox-sized back rooms his granny added back in the day for extra sleeping space.

Retrenchment not only left them jobless, it shattered their lives. Employment in the semi-formal sector didn’t come with a retirement fund option, even though they toiled for years.

This is not a unique story. Reams of paper have been printed about those in similar predicaments. To me though, Thabang and Mantwa are not a story I read in the paper, or subjects of one I’m working on. They are real. I know them intimately. I changed their names to protect what little dignity they may still have left. I have watched them go through life, seen the hope that came with employment and the despair that came with its loss.

I still see them occasionally. My heart sinks when Thabang asks for money for food or something as basic as toothpaste or bath soap, because the monthly child grant that sustains them runs out in the blink of an eye. He’s a father who cannot provide. He’s embarrassed to ask for help. He loves his daughter and wife dearly but can’t help feeling he has failed them horribly.

There is very little I can do for him and Mantwa employment-wise. They have no post-matric qualifications. Their admin-focused work experience is worthless; employers are looking for people with skills they do not have. So, disillusioned, they have stopped walking to the internet cafe down the road to upload and send CVs to potential employers. No-one is interested in what they have to offer. You can replicate this story in every township, village and working class settlement. Many others are worse off.

Whenever I read columnists, economists and commentators arguing that a basic income grant is pie in the sky, and will be a “burden on taxpayers”, I often wonder if they have ever come across a desperate person. If they have ever engaged in conversation with someone for whom a monthly cheque from Uncle Tito — no matter how small — could mean the difference between a loaf of bread or peeling an orange to give to a three-year-old, so she at least goes to bed on a half-filled stomach. 

The reinstatement of the R350 social relief of distress (SRD) grant until March 2022 makes life a little bit more bearable for those in this hopeless situation.

Should this grant be continued beyond March as a permanent basic income grant? It depends on who you ask; which side of the divide they fall into. Advocacy groups for the marginalised are adamant this should be the case. Tax the rich more. They are even advocating for almost R1,300 per needy individual per month.

Most commentators and economists I’ve read, heard on radio or seen on TV say this is the path towards economic disaster.

Claire Bisseker, one of our finest financial journalists, warns of the consequences of additional taxes on a shrinking base to support a growing welfare pool. “Look at it this way: as long as SA’s tiny pool of personal taxpayers (about 6.3-million) is shrinking and the pool on welfare (about 17-million) is growing, financing a basic income grant would require constant tax hikes. This would be severely growth dampening, which would worsen unemployment in a dangerous downward spiral.”

The solution, she argues, lies in making it easier for people to enter employment.

“A basic income grant may buy SA some respite from social unrest, but unless the country makes it much easier for people to not only enter employment, but to also sustain themselves — by reforming vocational training, reducing barriers to hiring and small-firm growth, accelerating land reform and lowering the cost of living (especially of electricity and wifi) — the entire pack of cards will ultimately come tumbling down,” Bisseker concludes.

Finance minister Tito Mboweni is kicking the basic income grant can to future policymakers. Last week, when unveiling a R36bn economic intervention package, R27bn of which goes toward extending the relief of distress grant to March, he was asked if this was a precursor to a BIG.

“Is this a precursor to a basic income grant or some permanent social support? The answer is, I do not know.

“What do I know is that we need to respond to the dire situation in which our people find themselves. And future policymakers — wherever they might be — may be able to answer the question more appropriately,” he responded.

Is a BIG affordable? I don’t know. I haven’t done the maths or researched the cost. On this one I choose to defer to those with a better informed view.

But should a country with so much wealth and waste — both public and private — be taking this long to come up with an answer, when the consequences of dithering are so dire for so many?

What do Thabang and Mantwa eat while the policymakers and experts punch the numbers and engage in ideological debates? Hunger doesn’t wait for economic reforms.

* Not their real names.