South Africa will reallocate grant savings to address violence
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The South African government plans to use R13 billion saved from social grant payments to combat gender-based violence and reduce child stunting.
Treasury officials announced the savings will come from stricter verification of applicants for the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant and a decrease in applications for the child support grant, linked to South Africa’s declining birth rate. The South African Social Security Agency is working with banks to ensure only eligible people receive the SRD grant.
Over the next three years, provinces will receive an extra R3.8 billion to hire more than 3,500 social workers. An additional R1.6 billion will fund support for pregnant women and young children through existing district health programmes. However, Treasury cautioned that a pending legal challenge regarding the SRD grant could increase costs significantly, potentially raising the annual funding requirement from R36 billion to R74 billion if the court rules against the current regulations.
Currently, the SRD grant provides R370 monthly to about 7 million people and is set to continue to March 2028 while the government decides its long-term future. Treasury is considering whether the grant should focus on food poverty and if it should require recipients to search for work.
Alongside these measures, Treasury will allocate R186 million to improve forensic services and investigative capacity within the criminal justice system and R157.4 million to the department of women, youth & persons with disabilities to improve coordination of responses to gender-based violence, a pressing issue in the country where a third of women have experienced physical violence.
