Folks,
Is this what the future of Africa looks like? Nations
ill-equipped to afford the dole, but forced to address
the grinding poverty of their citizens.
BY JON JETER
THE WASHINGTON POST
SOWETO, South Africa - Four generations get by on the
$100 pension that Johannes Khanye collects each month.
There are his two daughters, their seven children and
those children's four children, the youngest born but
six months ago. Counting the old man, that's 14 people
in all: two households, no jobs, no prospects. Still,
there are groceries to buy, electric bills to pay,
schoolbooks and diapers and always, always, too much
month left when the money runs out.
"There's never enough food," said Khanye, a widower,
lithe as a bantamweight at 88. "And many of my friends
are worse off. They ask to borrow money from me.
Pensions were not intended for the young, only the
old, but yet many, many people live as we do. The
government should do more to help the people."
As this country struggles to both modernize its
economy and combat a grave financial crisis, South
Africans are debating whether to do what no African
nation has ever done: create a welfare state.
Promoted by a broad coalition of labor unions,
churches, children's advocates, the elderly, women,
opposition politicians and even AIDS activists, a plan
to provide each man, woman and child age 7 to 65 with
a monthly welfare check of $10 has dominated the
political debate here this year.
Nearly a century after Europe and the United States
began cushioning their poorest citizens with cash and
other benefits, South Africa is the first nation on
this continent to earnestly weigh whether the dole can
work for a population for which poverty is not the
exception but the rule. A government task force report
that strongly supports implementation of the plan -
known as the Basic Income Grant, or BIG - sits on
President Thabo Mbeki's desk and awaits the
government's response.
Eight years after the repressive system of racial
separation known as apartheid was dismantled, many
South Africans have grown impatient with the new,
black-led government's free-market reforms.
Capitalism's sometimes glaring indifference to the
poor has given birth to a new discussion of social
policy, much as it did following the Industrial
Revolution in Europe and the United States.
More than half of South Africa's 42 million people
survive on less than $2 a day and the economy has shed
nearly 1 million jobs since 1994. Virtually the only
safety nets available to South Africans are a poorly
administered child support grant, for single mothers
with children under age 7, and the state-funded
old-age pension created by the apartheid government
nearly three decades ago, partly to defuse tensions
among restless blacks in townships such as Soweto.
By the most conservative estimates, unemployment here
has climbed to more than a quarter of the workforce,
and many South African economists say they believe the
figure is closer to 40 percent. As a result, one
retiree's pension often must support jobless children
and grandchildren, or in some cases extended families
that exceed 20 members.
Of nearly 22 million South Africans who live in
absolute poverty, approximately 13 million have no
access to any regular income, whether from a
relative's pension or otherwise.
"This is a crucial moment for Africa's development,"
said the Rev. Douglas Torr, an Anglican priest who
chairs a group of activists lobbying the government to
adopt BIG. "We're seeing an entire continent struggle
to make the passage from authoritarian, Marxist-style
government to a modern, market-driven democracy. Well,
part of that transformation to a modern society - and
we find our examples for this in the West - is to
assume the responsibility of caring for the people
whom the markets leave behind."
But while the sheer number of poor South Africans
suggests a need for some sort of relief, the proposal
also represents South Africa's principal challenge:
With so many poor people, who will pay for the dole?
"It is obvious that the issue of poverty must be
addressed," said Bheki Khumalo, Mbeki's spokesman.
"But we are a small economy. We must deal with the
situation in a way that is ultimately sustainable. We
can only spend the money that we have."
Sipping coffee and gently rocking her infant son's
carriage at a suburban shopping mall near Soweto, Anne
Sussman said: "I don't think Africans are ready for
the dole. I don't think we can afford it. And if you
start giving money to people, you will rob them of all
incentive to go out and work, and that's the last
thing we need: another African begging bowl.
"We're not like Americans or the British, where just a
few people here and there are poor. We're a nation of
poor people."
South Africa would distribute the $10 monthly stipend
to everyone. The dole could cost about $4.6 billion a
year, but economists estimate half of that would be
reclaimed through slightly higher taxes on the middle
class and the affluent.
Making the BIG payments without an income test, said
Torr, would do away with some of the most potentially
costly and perilous aspects of welfare. "What we don't
want to do is to create a welfare bureaucracy," he
said. "Once you start ... testing (for eligibility),
you create new headaches for yourselves, like
corruption and inefficiency."
The government's minister for social development, Zola
Skweyiya, has expressed support for the plan. But
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel denounced the proposal
in February, calling it unaffordable and an "economic
populism."
Supporters of the plan speculate that while the plan
has gained too much momentum for the ruling African
National Congress to reject it outright, Mbeki and his
cabinet ministers may delay its implementation. They
say that is because BIG is incompatible with the
government's fiscally conservative agenda, which seeks
to lure foreign investment by keeping a lid on state
spending, deficits and inflation.
While weak by Western standards, South Africa's
economy is the most industrialized in sub-Saharan
Africa. Though apartheid depressed the incomes and
dreams of most blacks here, it greatly expanded the
wealth held by the country's 8 million whites. Since
1994, a small black elite has emerged to join their
ranks.
"So South Africa has the advantage of a middle class,"
said Guy Mhone, an economics professor at the
University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. "That
creates the possibility of some cross-subsidization
and makes the case for providing a minimum level of
support to improve children's nutrition and health.
Without that human development, there's no economic
development."
Mhone and others acknowledge that $10 is a paltry sum,
but here is where African culture provides a crucial
advantage: Because many poor families band together to
maximize scant resources, the relatively paltry sum is
multiplied by the sheer numbers of people sharing
space.
"We're just trying to meet people's basic needs so
they can get through the day," said Aart Roukens de
Lange, founder of the South African New Economics
Foundation in Cape Town. "A modern society should do
that. History shows us that if it is to thrive, it
must do at least that."
But at issue is whether the dole will do more harm
than good.
"I think it's a bad idea to say to people: Look, no
matter what you do, we're going to give everyone in
your household ($10) per month," said Johannesburg
businessman Greg Esterhuizen. "What is ultimately
going to get this country back on its feet is the same
thing that gets people back on their feet: energy,
motivation, innovation. If people give up, stop even
trying to find work and just sit at home and wait on
that ($10) every month, then what kind of society will
we have?"
Advocates say a monthly grant would help the poor find
work by providing money for bus fare and clothes to
wear to job interviews. AIDS activists are lobbying
for the grant to help many of the estimated 4.2
million to 4.7 million HIV-infected South Africans buy
the food they need to stay healthier longer. And the
additional income can spur community development,
liberal economists and analysts argue, by enabling
poor consumers to spend at neighborhood stores and for
taxis, which can ultimately lead local business people
to expand their operations and hiring.
Lebohang Lijojo, Johannes Khanye's 20-year-old
grandson, said he is proof of what a difference just a
little money can make.
"We might have only had one meal a day a lot of times,
but just being able to get something in your stomach
made it possible to study," he said, sitting next to
his grandfather.
He enters college next year; his high school grades
were just good enough to get him a scholarship.
"Without my grandfather's support, I don't know what
would have happened to us," Lijojo said, his voice
barely above a whisper. "I wouldn't even have dreamed
of becoming somebody. My life's hope would have just
disappeared."
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