BIG SA — the party that promises reduced taxes and free income grants for everyone

Imagine a country where all citizens have a bank account to receive a free R3,500 a month while their personal income tax is lowered to alleviate poverty.

That is what the new political party Basic Income Grant SA (BIG SA) is promising its voters as the 18-month-old party heads to the polls next week.

As its name suggests, the party promises free basic income for all citizens, whether unemployed, receiving any type of social grant, or receiving a salary.

“Our party is not about a grant. It is a universal basic income, meaning the employed and unemployed people will get R3,500 per month in a bank card if they are over 26 years old to buy groceries. R1,500 will be given to those aged between 18 and 25,” BIG SA president Hendrick Kekana told TimesLIVE Premium. 

This means that those who earn no income, receive any one of the social grants, or earn a salary, will get additional income from government into their bank accounts each month.

This is to tackle the party’s seven basic mandates of eradicating hunger, ending poverty, creating jobs, dealing with illegal immigrants, crime, corruption and unwanted teenage pregnancies.

“Our vision is two-pronged. The first is that we are killing hunger and poverty straight away, which is the foundation for forming the party. The second part, which is the biggest part, is to grow the economy. Once people have access to funding, they will need more of everything — food, cement, malls, schools and so on. The economy would shoot up in a good way. We believe with this programme, we can grow the economy by more than 10% within the first three years,” Kekana said.

The party says it has found a way to fund the R1.25-trillion a year project without increasing any of the current taxes.

It plans to reduce personal income tax and introduce universal sale tax. This would be taxed at till points whenever an individual or a corporate makes any form of purchase, Kekana said.

“It is a separate tax but works similar to VAT because it has to be taken at till points. When you buy goods and services, a car, or a house, a percentage will be taken from those items. For example, if a bottle of water is R10, it will be sold for R12 and the R2 will go to the South African Revenue Service, then to the National Treasury, which should separate it from the rest of the tax revenue. That amount is paid to the banks.”

The only way for the funds to be accessed was through a bank card, meaning all citizens would be required to be part of the banking system.

“This will ensure that everyone has a bank account. South Africa is sitting with 16-million people who do not have bank accounts. Those 16-million will be forced to get into the banking system. This resolves the banking issue, but will also prevent foreigners and those with illegal passports from accessing these funds. We will then know for real how many South Africans we have and how many foreigners are in the country. At the moment, we are speculating.”

While the party has garnered support, mainly in Limpopo and Mpumalanga, it will only be contesting Gauteng in next week’s national general elections.

Kekana hopes to expand to other provinces in the 2026 local government elections. It aims to create 10-million entrepreneurs in 10 years.

“Those entrepreneurs, whether welders or spaza shops, will have to be registered and will have to employ two to three people each. If we create 10-million of those entrepreneurs and employ those people, we can end unemployment.”

“We are not against the ANC. We are one of the few parties that don’t want to talk about the ANC. We are not there to fight them, but there are millions of South Africans suffering from poverty, and that is what we are focusing on,” he said.