Many beneficiaries face significant hardship in meeting review requirements imposed by the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa).
Image: File
THE Universal Basic Income Coalition (UBIC) this week expressed its “deep disappointment” with the 2026 Budget Speech, warning that vulnerable South Africans would bear the brunt of the National Treasury’s efforts to achieve R3 billion in savings.
Despite a “significantly improved fiscal position”, the budget fails to deliver meaningful improvements for those most in need, instead prioritising “the middle class and the wealthy through increased allowances and tax relief”.
The coalition paints a grim picture for beneficiaries dependent on social grants. “For the grandmother in Khayelitsha stretching her Old Age Grant across an entire household, or the unemployed young man in Mamelodi relying on R370 to survive the month, the budget brings no meaningful relief.”
UBIC emphasises that in “real terms, the main non-interest expenditure has fallen”, resulting in reduced allocations for critical sectors such as “education, health and social protection”.
A focal point of UBIC’s critique is the Child Support Grant (CSG), which stands at R580 — “32% below the food poverty line (FPL) ... and 38% below the cost of a nutritious basket of food for a child”.
The coalition stresses: “These are not abstract percentages; they translate directly into hunger.” Caregivers’ testimonials reinforce this reality: “The grant runs out long before the month does.”
With one in four children stunted in South Africa, UBIC warns: “Government’s failure to bring the CSG in line with actual food costs fails both the children and their caregivers.”
The Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant also remains underfunded and uncertain. Unlike other grants, it “again receives no increase … remaining at a woeful R370 per month”, despite a fleeting increase of just R20 over five years.
Had the grant kept pace with inflation, “it would be worth about R460 per month”, but instead “it now sits below 50% of the Food Poverty Line”. UBIC highlighted that the grant was often the only income for many recipients, used for essentials such as transport to job interviews, to buy electricity, to contribute to household food.
Yet, the SRD grant is currently funded “only for the current financial year, with no allocation in the outer years”, perpetuating uncertainty and anxiety among recipients who wonder, “Will it continue? Will I still qualify?”
UBIC said it was alarmed by the government’s lack of clarity and progress in converting the SRD into a permanent basic income, noting: “The policy processes continue to needlessly lag.” They reported that: “The Department of Social Development (DSD) told Parliament that the basic income policy would only be presented to Cabinet in March 2027.”
Compounding concerns were indications that the proposed basic income might be conditional on job-seeking efforts — a move UBIC critiques sharply: “Attaching job-search requirements to income support is both impractical and conceptually flawed, since South Africa’s unemployment crisis is structural and people are not unemployed because they are not searching hard enough, they are unemployed because there are not enough jobs.”
Regarding efforts to combat fraud within the social grants system, UBIC disputes National Treasury’s claims that “better” income verification would save R3bn. The coalition argued that this framing “either fundamentally misunderstands or is deliberately dishonest about the nature of welfare fraud in South Africa”, pointing to research indicating that “the vast majority of grant fraud has been perpetrated by officials, not beneficiaries”.
Despite this, fraud prevention measures are disproportionately focused on beneficiaries, many of whom face significant hardship in meeting review requirements imposed by the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa). UBIC detailed how many cancellations and suspensions stemmed from beneficiaries missing “review deadlines because they cannot afford repeated transport to SASSA offices”.
Highlighting the human cost, the coalition warned: “Payments delayed without clear communication, disrupting fragile household budgets, force families to endure skipped meals or unpaid electricity.” With SASSA’s operating budget projected to fall by an average of 3.4% in real terms, UBIC expressed fear that the agency lacked the capacity to manage increased review demands properly.
UBIC contended that intensified reviews threatened to “exclude millions from social protection — not because they are fraudsters leeching off of the system, but because they are too poor to navigate requirements designed around an unevidenced assumption of widespread beneficiary fraud”.
Crucially, the coalition points out that, contrary to claims that savings from fraud prevention will be reinvested, “allocations in the outer years are lower, not higher, meaning savings are not being put back into the system”.
The report underscored persistent coverage gaps, estimating “17.4 million working-age people have incomes below the FPL, yet the SRD grant is budgeted for only approximately 8 million per month”, thus predetermining an exclusion rate of almost half.
Meanwhile, uptake of CSG among infants is declining, leaving a growing number of children without income support.
UBIC concludes by issuing a strong call to action:
The UBIC comprises numerous organisations, including the Institute for Economic Justice, Black Sash, Cosatu, and others committed to advancing social protection for South Africa’s most vulnerable populations.
In a year when the government had the opportunity to reduce hunger and restore dignity, UBIC warns the budget "failed to seize that opportunity," instead deepening inequality at great human cost.