Cape Town — Newly-elected Minister of Social Development, Sisisi Tolashe, has been urged to address the key challenges facing the poor in South Africa.
Tolashe was elected as the new Minister of Social Development, replacing Lindiwe Zulu. She will work alongside Al Jama-ah leader, Ganief Hendricks, who was appointed as deputy minister. The ministry faces an uphill battle to address some of South Africa’s biggest challenges, including poverty and inequality.
Human Rights Group, Black Sash, has called on Tolashe and co. to make the poor their priority and said, while it is too early to say whether the right appointment was made, regular engagement needs to happen, SABC News reported.
“We look forward to introducing our organisation to the new Minister and hope to continue engagements to address the struggle of beneficiaries that have been really challenged with receiving the full cash value of their grants given the problems with the SASSA, Postbank partnership.” Black Sash spokesperson, Hoodah Abrahams-Fayker, said.
“We further expect the new minister to honour the commitment to introduce basic income support by transitioning the Social Relief of Distress Grant into permanent social assistance for the unemployed which is improved and expanded,” she added.
According to The South African, Tolashe has a wealth of experience within the ANC, and has been a member of Parliament (MP) since 2016. She was mayor of the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality in the Eastern Cape and worked as deputy within the Presidency for women, youth and persons with disabilities but Minister fo Social Development will be her biggest challenge.
With SASSA grants disbursed to nearly 30 million South Africans, her biggest challenge is streamlining the payment process as many South Africans complain monthly about difficulty in receiving their SASSA grants.
The issue, too, is whether the SASSA grants are enough to keep up with food inflation, forcing many old-age pensioners to go without chronic medication and electricity just to keep food on the table.
ANC said a Basic Income Grant (BIG) would come into being as soon as 2026. This would be a reworking of the R370 SRD grant, which is only slated to run till March 2025. It remains to be seen whetehr Tolashe and Hendricks can work together to fund and maintain the programme.
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Compiled by Matthew Petersen
