STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS 2004
Fight poverty: grow the economy
David Masango
21 May 2004
President Thabo Mbeki says the government will continue to build a social security net to alleviate poverty in the country.
In his State of the Nation Address to the third democratic parliament in Cape Town on Friday, Mbeki said the government would ensure that all 7.7 million social grant beneficiaries in the country receive their grants.
"We will, within two years, add about 3.2 million children who will be eligible for the child support grant as the upper age limit is raised to 14", Mbeki said, adding that R166-billion would be allocated for social security over three years.
Mbeki said SA's new social security agency would become operational in 2005, thus improving the integrity and efficiency of the country's social grant system.
The National Social Security Agency will administer, manage and pay out social grants estimated at over R50-billion a year.
Mbeki said the government would also continue to implement other social
security initiatives, such as the school nutrition programme and the provision of free basic water and electricity services.
The policy on free basic electricity, adopted in 2002, provides poor households with 50kw of free electricity per month, while the Free Basic Water Programme provides households, especially the poor, with 6 000 litres of free water per month.
Mbeki said, however, that a society in which large sections of the population depended on social welfare could not sustain its development.
"Our comprehensive programme to grow the economy, including interventions in both the first and second economies, improving sustainable livelihoods and creating work, is meant to ensure that, over time, a smaller proportion of society, in particular the most vulnerable, subsists solely on social grants", Mbeki said.
He said government also needed to achieve more in improving the quality of life of all people.
He said the government would ensure that
within the next five years all households have easy access to clean running water. "By December this year ... we will provide clean and potable water to the 10th million South African since 1994", he said.
In addition, more than 300 000 households will have access to basic sanitation by the end of this year, while every household will have access to electricity within the next eight years, Mbeki said.
Source: BuaNews
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