President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration will increase grants from 1st April without trepidation.
This was confirmed by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana when delivering his last 2024 National Budget speech in Cape Town cementing the increase in the cost of living in South Africa to nearly 19 million.
Despite that opposition parties expressed their discontentment over President Ramaphosa’s administration during the much-anticipated last Budget Speech for 2024, Minister Godongwana announced that social grant beneficiaries will now get monthly; child support grant increases from R510 to R530, foster child grant increases by R50, older person’s Grant increases by R90 on 1 April and R10 in October 2024 and lastly Covid-19 social relief of distress grant will be R350.
Pensioner who opted to remain anonymous said: “The ANC has made mistakes however they are trying to deal with the mistake of the apartheid regime. I urge the ANC to defuse its internal squabbles and corruption. The masses are no longer patient. We urge President Ramaphosa and his administration to repent before it’s too late.”
Another pensioner said: “We are worried that those who are deployed are failing to deliver because of their selfish interests. It’s said to see the ANC losing power because of such individuals.”
Reacting to the Budget Speech the Democratic Alliance (DA) Shadow Minister of Finance Dr Dion George said Godongwana’s speech was the ANC bail-out budget which the ruling party lacked political will.
George said: “The Minister of Finance's annual Budget is another indication of a panicking ANC government that has no plan to accelerate economic growth, resolve relentless blackouts, stabilise debt, rein in runaway expenditure, support vulnerable South Africans and combat corruption.”
George said further that his party, the DA, noted the Minister’s announcement of Government’s support for private-public partnerships to rebuild South Africa’s crumbling infrastructure. Yet, there is a notable absence of a coherent plan to fast-track this initiative. He said the opposition party has already made proposals to implement such a model.
“The DA was pleased to see that there were no further direct bailouts to SOEs and no additional funds were allocated to the National Health Insurance (NHI), which the party says is doomed,” George added.
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