The R350 Grant Was Temporary; The R1500 Promise Is Permanent Dependency

The SRD grant was meant to be a safety net. Instead, it has become a handcuff, keeping millions dependent while delaying the economic reforms South Africa needs to create jobs.

Written By: Matsheole Majoro

In May 2020 the rollout of the Special COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress grant began. Initially, it was supposed to be temporary for six months emergency measure to aid unemployed citizens financially that were affected by the pandemic. Since then, the grant has been extended and updated.

In 2023, the ANC Youth league president demanded that the R350 Social Relief of Distress grant should be increased to R1,500. He added the unemployed graduates should be given R4500 monthly. Two years later and the grant is R370.

Today 28million South Africans receive some kind of social grant; the temporary measure has become permanent.

Every election cycle, the ruling party teases grant increase in front of voters. The R350 became R370 in 2024. A R20 increase that does not even cover a liter of milk. Yet the persuasion of R1500 continues.

The SRD grant has proven to be a failure - an expensive one at that. The grant was supposed to be a safety net, instead it has trapped people into poverty. Households that depend on the grant are merely surviving, while grants offer financial support, sustained dependency may discourage some people from looking for employment. Social grants have a way of keeping the individuals that benefit from them from taking steps that would help them out of poverty. The hand-out becomes a handcuff.

The suggestion of the R1500 teaches that the government is the source of all good things. It is control, a way to keep people waiting for the government than building their own futures. Creating the R350 grant was the ANC way of keeping people dependent, ensuring that they continue voting for them.

South Africa needs an economy that creates jobs; it needs entrepreneurs. South Africa does not need another grant. The SRD grant alone has been earmarked an additional R36.4 billion to continue payments until March 2027 at R370 per month. The National Treasury made it clear that increasing the grant or increasing eligibility would be fiscally untenable. Increasing it to R1500 would be disastrous.

Social grants don’t just redistribute funds. They make individuals dependent on the governments permission to survive. When the government controls how you get to eat, you don’t get to question the government. You wait and hope and vote for whoever promises the next increase.

A free society would have an economy that turns unemployment into work. A free society would not need SRD grants at all. What South Africa needs is a smaller state. This isn’t cruelty; it’s the belief that individuals can build better lives for themselves, better than any government planner could design for them. Every grant that is redistributed instead of invested in economic growth is every year real solutions are delayed.

The R1500 promise will be made again at the next ANC political rally, the next election cycle, the next moment votes are needed. It won’t be delivered - it was never meant to. Will South Africans keep waiting for an EFT that never comes or will they start building a future does not need one.

Matsheole Majoro is a final-year International Relations student and an associate of the Free Market Foundation.