Activists and union members march for Basic Income Grant
The Cry of the Xcluded demand a basic income grant of R1,500 which they say will meet the immediate needs of the unemployed.
The Cry of the Xcluded demand a basic income grant of R1,500 which they say will meet the immediate needs of the unemployed.
The end of January marks the end of the Social Relief of Distress grant of R350, disbursed by Sassa, but civil society organisations have called for an extension.
Long snaking queues are still the order of the day at the social security agency, Sassa, after 302 days of lockdown in South Africa.
The organisations are also demanding that a comprehensive plan for a guaranteed basic income be put in place in the next national budget.
South Africa is said to have overcome the peak in covid-19 cases, while many African nationals will take much longer to recover from the lockdown.
Tomase still has longer to wait for her ID document that will give her and her children access to a social grant or the covid-19 emergency relief grant as a cushion against their grinding poverty.
The measures taken by government to slow the spread of COVID-19 have unmasked the face of racialised and gendered inequalities hiding in the folds of democracy.
Despite claims by SASSA that it has dealt with the influx of grant applicants at its Khayelitsha office, those seeking help continue to sleep outside the building hoping not to be turned away the next day.
Hunger and a social security agency that is unprepared for the disbursement of the Covid-19 relief grant is what is causing the long queues.
The long queues at Khayelitsha Mall were especially long and winding this week as the coronavirus temporarily closed two other retail centres in the biggest township in the Western Cape.
The numbers of those infected by the coronavirus in Khayelitsha are growing alarmingly as residents fail to practice social distancing while they queue for food parcels and submit applications for jobs.
The strategy by SASSA to stagger payments of social grants fails as elderly and disabled people and shoppers stand in long queues in poor communities around Cape Town.