The R350 social relief of distress (SRD) grant could come to an end in March next year as the government has no plans to extend it.
This emerged from the 2024 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana on Wednesday.
Instead, the government is considering ways to reform social grants and consolidate public employment initiatives to cater for the unemployed.
The MTBPS made it clear that there will be no SRD grants in the coming few financial years.
“Over the next three years, 30.6% of the population will receive some form of grant, excluding the Covid-19 social relief of distress grant.
Government will spend R3.4billion on job creation initiatives in 2024-25,” reads the document.
The R350 grant was initially introduced for six months to support the unemployed during the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
It has been extended several times and was only increased in this year’s budget by R20.
The National Treasury said a sustainable fiscal approach required that any additional permanent spending on grants should be funded through permanent revenue sources from within the fiscal environment.
“A wide range of fiscal financial support is provided to unemployed persons. However, these interventions are split across agencies and do not function as a cohesive, integrated system.
“Moreover, there is little to no linkage between the social security system and the policy goal of increasing employment.”
The National Treasury also said the government was considering ways to reform the grant system and consolidate public employment initiatives.
“This includes a review of the impact of the skills development funding system, where the levy collected averaged R20.09 billion over the last three years. Proposals will be presented in the 2025 budget.”
Meanwhile, the 2024 adjusted budget made an allocation for partially funding an increase in the value of the SRD grant, among other things.
“An additional R1.6 billion is allocated to partially fund the increase (in the) value of the SRD grant from R350 to R370 per month, bringing the total allocation for the grant, including rollovers, to R36.3billion for 2024-25.”
A total of R1.555bn was rolled over to fund outstanding social relief of distress grant payments from 2023-24.
Cape Times