JOHANNESBURG - The finance minister's budget is not doing anyone any favours according to advocacy group Black Sash.
The group says increases for pensions, child care and foster care grants were barely above inflation, while cash was thrown at other SOE's.
Director Rachel Bukasa says this proves that social spending in South Africa is an issue of political will rather than affordability.
She said, "short of maybe one or two grants, the rest is barely an inflationary increase and the extension of the SRD grant is nothing new, it's something we knew already since the end of last year, and so what essentially the ministers speech has done is provide the bare minimum."
"It's nothing to throw flowers at or to feel like people are owed some sense of gratitude for that. And inflationary increase is something that should happen based on the current status of the economy."
"So it's not a favour he's done for anybody. [...] there is room for them to do more and in fact we've said to government on numerous occasions, even to the president himself. Put a couple of us in a room, economists from our sector, from your sector and we can show you seven different ways that this can be afforded."
"And so the fiscal pressure, it's amazing that the pressure only exists when it comes to social security and social income support but there's no fiscal pressure when it's about, you know, bailing SAA and Eskom out for the how ever millionth time or let alone the mismanagement of funds so, I think the government is really selective about where they feel this pressure and what we're saying - if it's pressure all round, yes, but if it's selective in this case this is purely political will issue and not an affordability issue."