Speaking at the ANC’s 111th birthday celebrations, President Cyril Ramaphosa received warm applause when he announced that effectively nearly half of South Africans were receiving some form of social welfare assistance.
According to Ramaphosa, about 18-million people receive old age, child support and disability grants. In addition to this, 11-million more people receive the R350 grants that were instituted as a measure of providing assistance for those who could not eke out a living because of Covid-19 restrictions.
This effectively means that almost half of SA’s 60-million population depends on the state from being without any income.
At around the same time, many middle-class families seem to be thinking beyond the state for the needs that are traditionally provided by the government.
Those who are able to, including cabinet ministers, would rather pay high medical aid premiums than take their chances with the country’s health system.
Private schools are mushrooming around the country as parents look for improved education prospects for their children. Schoolteachers in townships take their children to schools in suburbia rather than to the schools where they themselves teach.
In some communities, buying bottled water has become part of the basic grocery budget because water provision is either unreliable or the quality cannot be guaranteed.
Where a theft is reported to the police, it is often so that the insurance company processes can be complied with rather than an expectation that law enforcement can find culprits and return stolen goods.
Private security companies, which were the norm in suburbia, are starting to prop up in townships and villages because police simply cannot be trusted to respond in time in the event of the need for law enforcement.
A question that arises for many of those who pay taxes is whether they derive value for their money if they still have to buy for themselves what they reasonably expect the state to provide.
In other words, what is the state’s value proposition? What would happen if the state did not exist?
As SA heads to what might well be the most watershed elections in the 30 years of democracy, it seems fair to say that only the poorest and marginalised can claim that the government really has value for them.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. It is actually a good thing. A state that has a preferential option for the poor and the marginalised is to be applauded.
That said, keeping the wolf at bay cannot be the be-all of a state policy.
As helpful as the state’s intervention is, the average person finds dignity in being able to provide for themselves and not depend on handouts. Even babies who have not yet mastered their hand-to-mouth co-ordination insist on feeding themselves.
It does not help that the provision to the poor by the state is almost always at the expense of the dignity of those who receive such.
It is heartbreaking to see how adult men and women have to start queueing from pre-dawn and surrender whatever is left of their dignity as they wait for Post Office officials to open and in the hope that the queue will not be cut off before their turn to collect their R350 comes.
How many of us would be happy to be spotted in those queues waiting for the state to dole out some cash our way? Surely there must be other less invasive ways of the state helping the poor. Other recipients of social grants such as those who get old-age pensions and child grants have alternatives.
Back to the middle-classes. No state can afford to neglect the majority of those who provide the tax base to allow it to provide its best work. This is not to say, as some right wing commentators like suggesting, that the poor do not pay taxes.
The point is that the bulk of taxes are derived from personal incomes consistently hovering near the 40% mark of all the tax collected.
Those who need the state’s help actually need the middle-classes and the employed to keep working and earning incomes.
It does not need a political economist or a soothsayer to see that a country that has a shrinking tax base and a growing need for the state’s intervention faces a bleak future.
As SA heads to next year’s elections, Ramaphosa and the ANC would do well to ensure that, as well meant as the social grants are, they cannot be the future. In fact, it is a mark of state failure.
FIKILE-NTSIKELELO MOYA | Government handouts a mark of state’s failure
Country with a shrinking tax base and growing need for grants faces a bleak future
Image: Thapelo Morebudi
Speaking at the ANC’s 111th birthday celebrations, President Cyril Ramaphosa received warm applause when he announced that effectively nearly half of South Africans were receiving some form of social welfare assistance.
According to Ramaphosa, about 18-million people receive old age, child support and disability grants. In addition to this, 11-million more people receive the R350 grants that were instituted as a measure of providing assistance for those who could not eke out a living because of Covid-19 restrictions.
This effectively means that almost half of SA’s 60-million population depends on the state from being without any income.
At around the same time, many middle-class families seem to be thinking beyond the state for the needs that are traditionally provided by the government.
Those who are able to, including cabinet ministers, would rather pay high medical aid premiums than take their chances with the country’s health system.
Private schools are mushrooming around the country as parents look for improved education prospects for their children. Schoolteachers in townships take their children to schools in suburbia rather than to the schools where they themselves teach.
In some communities, buying bottled water has become part of the basic grocery budget because water provision is either unreliable or the quality cannot be guaranteed.
Where a theft is reported to the police, it is often so that the insurance company processes can be complied with rather than an expectation that law enforcement can find culprits and return stolen goods.
Private security companies, which were the norm in suburbia, are starting to prop up in townships and villages because police simply cannot be trusted to respond in time in the event of the need for law enforcement.
A question that arises for many of those who pay taxes is whether they derive value for their money if they still have to buy for themselves what they reasonably expect the state to provide.
In other words, what is the state’s value proposition? What would happen if the state did not exist?
As SA heads to what might well be the most watershed elections in the 30 years of democracy, it seems fair to say that only the poorest and marginalised can claim that the government really has value for them.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. It is actually a good thing. A state that has a preferential option for the poor and the marginalised is to be applauded.
That said, keeping the wolf at bay cannot be the be-all of a state policy.
As helpful as the state’s intervention is, the average person finds dignity in being able to provide for themselves and not depend on handouts. Even babies who have not yet mastered their hand-to-mouth co-ordination insist on feeding themselves.
It does not help that the provision to the poor by the state is almost always at the expense of the dignity of those who receive such.
It is heartbreaking to see how adult men and women have to start queueing from pre-dawn and surrender whatever is left of their dignity as they wait for Post Office officials to open and in the hope that the queue will not be cut off before their turn to collect their R350 comes.
How many of us would be happy to be spotted in those queues waiting for the state to dole out some cash our way? Surely there must be other less invasive ways of the state helping the poor. Other recipients of social grants such as those who get old-age pensions and child grants have alternatives.
Back to the middle-classes. No state can afford to neglect the majority of those who provide the tax base to allow it to provide its best work. This is not to say, as some right wing commentators like suggesting, that the poor do not pay taxes.
The point is that the bulk of taxes are derived from personal incomes consistently hovering near the 40% mark of all the tax collected.
Those who need the state’s help actually need the middle-classes and the employed to keep working and earning incomes.
It does not need a political economist or a soothsayer to see that a country that has a shrinking tax base and a growing need for the state’s intervention faces a bleak future.
As SA heads to next year’s elections, Ramaphosa and the ANC would do well to ensure that, as well meant as the social grants are, they cannot be the future. In fact, it is a mark of state failure.
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