Cape Town - The National Department of Social Development (DSD) in collaboration with the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) launched the Social Security Review Volume 2 yesterday.
The launch of the publication, themed “Social Security in the time of Covid-19” took place at the HSRC Head Office in Cape Town.
DSD acting director-general, Peter Netshipale, said: “Insights from the independent authored chapters help us to develop interventions that can suitably respond to disasters, crises and shocks and guide future plans thus ensuring sustainability of programmes.”
A few of the authors held a panel discussion on their chapter findings.
One of the authors, HSRC Director: Impact and Research Develop, Shirin Motala, said: “There were weaknesses, there were gaps in the system. There were sectors of the vulnerable population that were excluded still, particularly informal sector workers. There was a huge issue around the lack of coherence and integration between systems.”
“Seven different departments had to assist for the Covid-19 grant review, to make sure that somebody who was getting a SASSA grant, was getting UIF, doesn't get double. Seven different systems to have to screen, to identify whether somebody qualifies for that grant or not.”
Professor Marius Olivier’s chapter looked at the social security position of migrants during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The exposure of migrants in the Covid-19 period and the vulnerability was exceptionally negative as we all know to the extent that the Government of Lesotho for example, when borders were closed actually sent livelihood support to their own citizens in this country.
“Given the extreme vulnerability, movement restrictions, in this case etc. the analysis brought us to understand that major categories of migrants actually were excluded from the system, especially social assistance.”
Dr Mark Blecher’s chapter looked at Financing and Innovation in Social Security Amidst Covid-19: Impacts and Long-Term consideration.
“What was kind of interesting was that on the UIF side, the UIF was sitting with huge surpluses, of over R100 billion, but we have a strange system in our social security entities, where some of them like the UIF have large surpluses but many others have substantial deficits and one can’t shift the funds between them but the UIF was able to fund this R50 billion through its surpluses. But the SRD grants and the other social grants had to be funded largely through borrowing.”
HSRC Research Associate and Advocate Gary Pienaar said:
“We looked primarily at the SRD at its uptake during Covid. There was a massive demand and already rapid implementation and scaling up of the availability of that grant as people became desperate, as we all became locked down, socially distant, and in many cases unemployed. And we used that opportunity, of that real life experience to look at what does this tell us about the desire for, the need for a Universal Basic Income Grant going forward.
“The essence here was the massive demand for this grant that triggered our interest,” he said.
shakirah.thebus@inl.co.za
Cape Argus