4  DECEMBER 2025, CAPE TOWN

PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL GRANTS: KEEPING FAMILIES AFLOAT AMID THE RISING COST OF LIVING AND THE TRIPLE CHALLENGES OF POVERTY, INEQUALITY, AND UNEMPLOYMENT

HONOURABLE MEMBERS 

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN 

FELLOW SOUTH AFRICANS WATCHING AT HOME

GREETINGS TO YOU ALL!

HOUSE CHAIRPERSON,

I rise to reinforce the message my comrades who spoke before me have eloquently expressed: ‘the ANC supports this Amendment Bill as it speaks to the pain, the hopes, and the daily struggles of poor and working-class households’. In short, this Amendment Bill shows a clear choice: it protects jobs, not cut them; and it supports poor and working-class citizens, not abandon them.

I want to firmly say this to noisy, opposition parties:

Those opposing this Amendment Bill are opposing millions of South Africans from poor and working-class backgrounds who depend on jobs created through the Presidential Employment Stimulus and social protection. Our poor and working-class citizens do not need noise – they need jobs, adequate social wage, food security, reliable service delivery, and a government that cushions them during hardships. This Amendment Bill does exactly that.

Noisy opposition parties try so hard to convince us that jobs created through the Public Employment Stimulus are “unsustainable” and social wages are “handouts”. But let me ask these opposition parties two simple questions:

Firstly, what is unsustainable about a young mother who is earning and contributing towards putting food on the table because she has a job through public employment programmes?

Secondly, what is a handout about a young graduate gaining real experience through public employment programmes and unemployed elderly people getting the social wage that protects them and their families against the toughest periods of their lives?

And the reality is simple: opposition parties would never respond to these questions because they are out of touch with the daily struggles of our poor communities and are oblivious of what the social wage means for a poor family in Nkandla fighting to survive.

HONOURABLE MEMBERS,

During public hearings on this Amendment Bill, COSATU and SECTION27 reminded the Standing Committee on Appropriations that hunger, violence, and neglect increase when families collapse under poverty. This Amendment Bill makes an upward adjustment of R2 billion to the Department of Social Development Vote to clear the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant backlog to protect vulnerable eligible beneficiaries. While most opposition parties here claim to have the interests of the poor at heart during elections, only the ANC defends the poor with budget allocations, not slogans. That is the difference between them and us.

When we mention the SRD grant, opposition parties laugh as they perceive it as “dependency”, yet they never faced a month with no income.

HONOURABLE CHAIRPERSON,

In the very same public hearings, COSATU cautioned us that poor and working-class families are being crushed by unemployment, rising food prices, and the collapse of the delivery of basic services at the municipal level. The PBO reiterated the same caution in its submission, urging the government to introduce immediate interventions to prevent deepening inequality and worsening unemployment.

The ANC listened. The ANC acted.

This Amendment Bill allocates R450 million to eight (8) metropolitan municipalities from the Public Employment Stimulus for the 2025/26 financial year to implement new or upscale existing city-led Public Employment Programmes. These city-led Public Employment Programmes give our unemployed young people a first job, a first work experience, a first payslip, and a first sense of dignity. Opposition parties that vote against this Bill must look at millions of unemployed youths in the eye and say: “we chose to vote against your first job, against your training while you search for job opportunities, and against your chance to stand on your own two feet”.

FELLOW SOUTH AFRICANS,

SALGA’s submission during public hearings showed a grave concern that our municipalities – local, district, and metros – are struggling as their debts are piling up, revenues are falling, infrastructure is collapsing, and basic services that poor and working-class households depend on every day like water, sanitation, roads, and electricity are breaking down. This Amendment Bill intervenes decisively by adding R2.1 billion to the Urban Development Financing Grant and R496 million to the Municipal Disaster Recovery Grant. These allocations will, amongst other things:

• Repair storm-damaged water systems.
• Repair sanitation networks.
• Stabilise electricity distribution.
• Fund investments in municipal roads and community infrastructure.
• Reverse inefficiencies in service delivery from trading services.

Opposition parties that vote against this Amendment Bill must tell the truth to their voters and communities that: “we voted against fixing your municipal water systems, against repairing your municipal roads, and against funding your sanitation networks

HONOURABLE MEMBERS,

Equal Education echoed the same concerns raised by COSATU, SECTION27, SALGA, and the PBO during public hearings that children cannot learn properly when public schools are broken, overcrowded, or unsafe, suggesting that this had to be addressed sooner rather than later.

This Amendment Bill allocates R454 million to the Education Infrastructure Grant, with R100 million to the Eastern Cape and R354 million to KwaZulu Natal, for:

• Replacing school infrastructure damaged by extreme weather conditions linked to climate change.
• Replacing unsafe classrooms.
• Ensuring that learning continues despite climate-change related disasters.

It is ironic that opposition parties that claim to care about children oppose this Amendment Bill which allocates the very funding that rebuilds damaged public-school infrastructure. That is evident hypocrisy, and I hope poor and working-class households that depend on public education can see it.

HONOURABLE CHAIRPERSON,

This Amendment Bill matters because it speaks to the vulnerable and marginalised people, particularly:

• The unemployed youth who gets a first opportunity through city-led Public Employment Programmes.
• The elderly people whose healthcare facilities have medicines in stock.
• The learner whose public-school classroom no longer leaks every time it rains.
• Vulnerable and marginalised families that depend on the social wage, especially the SRD grant.
• The community whose electricity, water, and sanitation systems are finally being repaired.

These figures represent poor and working-class mothers, fathers, workers, and young people who look to the ANC-led government for support and survival.

HONOURABLE MEMBERS,

In conclusion, I want to firmly say the following without apology:

To the DA:

You advocate for fiscal austerity disguised as “responsible budgeting”.
You oppose Public Employment Programmes, oppose municipal support, and oppose school repairs, yet you claim to care about citizens from poor and working-class backgrounds.
Your policies would collapse provincial health and education systems.

I hope the voters see you for what you really are!

To the EFF:

You shout for radical socio-economic policies aimed at alleviating poverty, inequality, unemployment, and hunger but you oppose this Amendment Bill which seeks to address them.
In short, the EFF wants revolution for television, not relief for struggling poor and working-class families.

To the MK Party:

Don’t pretend your “no” vote to this Amendment Bill is principled and people centred. It is politics without “responsibility”, if not political grandstanding.

I want to let poor and working-class citizens who are the traditional constituents of the ANC to know the following:

• The ANC is voting in favour of this Amendment Bill to protect them.
• The ANC is voting in favour of this Amendment Bill to expand youth opportunities.
• The ANC is voting in favour of this Amendment Bill to keep the deliver of public goods and services at the provincial and municipal levels running.

My ANC Comrades who spoke before me have made it clear that this Amendment Bill is about stability, protection, and progress. I am glad I added my voice to theirs.

I thank you.