President Cyril Ramaphosa speaking at the ANC January 8 Celebrations at the Mbombela Stadium. [Picture: IOL]
That any new government will halt social grants and subsidised higher education upon dislodging the African National Congress (ANC) after this year’s elections is “pure fabrication” and close to “politics of desperation”.
That is according to an analyst responding to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s recent remarks to that effect.
Speaking in an interview on Salaamedia, governance expert Professor Sam Khoma accused Ramaphosa and his party of resorting to scare tactics in the build up to the elections. The ruling party is confronting the possibility of losing power for the first time since 1994.
At the ANC’s 112th birthday celebrations in Mbombela, Mpumalanga over the weekend, Ramaphosa told supporters the social grants and the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) would likely disappear if the party lost power.
“Our policies have been pro-poor,” he claimed. “I don’t know of any other country in the continent that has committed itself to 18 million people who receive grants, young and old, as well as an additional 10 million who get grants of R350.”
But Khoma retorted that the president had to “resort to this tactic” simply because he was “seeking reelection”.
SMread: Funds urgently needed to counter Zionist narrative
Constitutional rights
In the wake of Ramaphosa’s statements, experts have pointed out that it would not be so easy for any new administration to simply do away with the vast social security system currently in place. This was because Section 27 of the Constitution, said Khoma, spelt out that everyone had the right to access social security.
“The Constitutional Court has on numerous occasions affirmed this constitutional right to have access to social security [for] South African citizens. This is based on the various litigation that have come before the Constitutional Court, so it is incorrect for the president to make this kind of a statement,” he said.
Furthermore, Section 29 granted the right to access further education. NSFAS was a tool – albeit one compromised by incompetence – to give effect to that right. It would likely remain in place.
“There’s no merit to what the president said,” according to Khoma.
Nearly half of South Africans (47%) are believed to rely on a grant of some sort, costing the country billions of Rand. The NSFAS disburses financial aid to some 1.3 million students annually, at a cost of around R50 billion.
