How Social Grants shape lives in Mamelodi and De Doorns

Almost half of South Africa’s 60-million-strong population is dependent on social grants provided by the government in different forms to cushion families and individuals from biting poverty.

Last year, IOL reported that South African households have become more dependent on the government’s social assistance as social grants remain the main source of income for almost one-quarter of households nationally on the back of stagnant economic growth and widespread unemployment.

The details emerged in 2024 as Statistics SA (Stats SA) released the General Household Survey 2023.

In IOL’s recent investigation, one of the most anticipated grants is the R530 child support grant. The money was increased by R20 last year to the current R530 which translates to a gradual increase of only R80 in the child support grant over the past four years.

In Mamelodi, mother-of-two daughters Priscilla Mabasa (not her real name) lamented that the R1,060 she receives monthly is a far cry from what she requires to take care of her bubbly daughters.

“I am unemployed and have been sitting at home for more than four years. I have tried to find work but no one is hiring. From the R1,060 I receive from government, I need R700 to pay rent in the mkhukhu (shack) I am renting," she said.

"The child support grant is my only source of income so I have to use the money to pay for all my costs. We are left with roughly over R300 to buy food so you can imagine how we live in this place,” she said.

“My children have to attend a no-fee school but I am not confident about the quality of education they are getting. If it were possible, I wish their grant would be enough to take them to a private school so that they get quality education like other children in this community.

“Whatever I need as their parent, it has to come from that child support grant. Sometimes I go for months without paying rent because I would have used the child support grant for other expenses. My mother passed away last year and we had to use the child support grant to cover some of the funeral expenses. It is tough out here,” she said.

Mabasa said from the child support grant, her children have to meet expenses including stationery, uniforms, food, and clothes.

In 2024, online publication BusinessTech reported that the child support grant of R530 is 30% below the Food Poverty Line of R760 and 45% below the R960 average cost to feed a child a basic nutritious diet.

In the Western Cape, the Women on Farms Project (WFP) is a Stellenbosch-based feminist non-governmental organisation that has been working with women farm workers and dwellers since 1966, and in the Northern Cape since 2009. WFP’s mission is to support and strengthen the capacity of women farm workers and dwellers to know, claim and realise their rights.

Speaking to IOL, Colette Solomon, director of Women on Farms Project said because work on the farms is often seasonal, the women mostly cover their household expenses with social grants.

“The various social security grants in South Africa are very important to farm workers and especially women farm workers for two main reasons, first being that these women are only seasonally employed that is from about September/October to March the following year and for the rest of the year they are effectively unemployed. There is very little work during the winter months on farms,” she said.

“During those months, the various grants are really the only reliable monthly source of income for households.”

She said although the National Minimum Wage is welcomed, it remains very low and the women need the social security grant to supplement their earnings to meet their monthly financial expenses.

“The expenses that are covered by the grants really are all household expenses from food to transport costs to go to the nearest town, toiletries, medical costs like if you have to buy some medication, any additional costs relating to children’s education, clothes – all of that comes out of the social security grants.

“When we look at the value of these grants, they really are not adequate. They are not sufficient to cover even the bare nutritional needs of a child. The child support grant is R530 and the cost to feed a child is about R960 to provide healthy, nutritious food. That is almost double the value of the child support grant," said Solomon.

“Even if the child support grant was going only to the child, it would not be covering their nutritional needs."

Former farm worker, Dina Ndleleni from De Doorns in the Western Cape said she has to use her social grant to obtain medicine after she was poisoned with pesticide while working on the farm.

“I’ve been a farm worker for many years and I’ve been working on the farm for more than 40 years, where I inhaled poisonous chemicals and gases/toxins. Now I’m struggling with asthma. I had asthma but the toxins affected my lungs.  With the poisonous chemicals they sprayed, I inhaled it — because they sprayed the vineyard while people were present — and I got sick and collapsed in the vineyard,” Ndleleni said.

After collapsing, she was taken to a doctor and I was later taken to the hospital.

“That is the reason why I cannot work and I’ve been living on the old-age grant because I’m over 60. Even with the old-age grant, things are very difficult for me because I’m a single mother. The youth are not finding jobs — the country doesn’t have jobs for the youth,” she narrated.

“With the R2,100 that I receive monthly I need to ensure I pay my own policy and policies are very expensive for old people and I have to pay for the policies of both my children — in their 40s — because they each have to have their own. It’s tough times as I still have to buy electricity and pay for water. I have to buy food. With my health, I have to take taxis to get to the hospital.”

She emphasised that life is very tough for lots of people in her situation. Ndleleni appealed for the government to increase the grant amount for the elderly.

“I got my money a week ago, and I don’t even have a single cent left. I don’t have any more money. And when I don’t have money like now, I have to go to a money loaner to borrow money and then when I get my next grant, I have to repay that debt.

“The old age grant is very, very very little. And you have to support your adult children. It’s really not going well in our country,” she emphasised.

Campaigns Coordinator at Women on Farms Project, Kara Mackay told IOL that social grants are “a very important tool in the hands of farm women”.

She emphasised that work done on farms is very precarious labour during the seasons when it is available.

"When it comes to (women) and young girls, they also have toiletries that they also need to account for in that budget. Most women report that they first have to buy the toiletries for the young women and then they use the rest of the money to buy food, which will never be enough. What women are doing is that they rely on debt in the shops at the farms.

"Those prices are very expensive or they go to the money lenders where they can access loans. You go to a money lender, for R1,000 you have to pay that money lender at the end of the month R1,400. There is the cycle of debt that women find themselves trapped. Women are doing this to feed their families," said Mackay.

jonisayi.maromo@iol.co.za

IOL