Public policy and developmental imperatives: theorising governance in the case of social grants in Endumeni Local Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal.
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Date
2022
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Abstract
This study assesses public policies in the domain of social grants and their developmental
imperatives by theorising the governance of social grants in the jurisdiction of Endumeni Local
Municipality (ELM) in the North-Western part of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). It uses a
triangulation of theoretical approaches, namely, the Ecosystems Perspective (EP),
Empowerment-Based Approach (EBA), and Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA), for
their aptness to guide this study. The interpretivist case study, exploratory qualitative design,
and inductive reasoning were adopted when this study was conducted. Purposive sampling was
used because only information-rich participants were selected during data collection. Data was
collected through one-on-one interviews, focus group discussions (FGDs), and overt
observation. Interviews were conducted with 32 beneficiaries of social grants and eight
officials of the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), FGDs were done with three
groups of recipients of social grants, and each group had six to 12 participants who had never
been part of the interviews. The observation took place in various pay points in Endumeni
Local Municipality.
The findings of this study show that social grants play a crucial role in addressing high levels
of poverty and destitution among the poor. However, they are insufficient to cover the
beneficiaries’ basic needs as they are below the prescribed minimum wage and household-food
basket, and their sustainability is uncertain. This study views social grants as untenable because
South Africa’s economy is fledgling, faltering and hamstrung by various socio-economic
challenges that the government fails to address; as a result, this makes people disillusioned with
the current government. The study recommends that a political transformation which
guarantees comprehensive social protection that leads to economic freedom for every citizen
is needed in South Africa for poor people to escape poverty, especially “black Africans”.
It notes that patronage systems that is used when issuing tenders for disbursing social grants
and corruption in the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), such as SASSA and South African Post
Office (SAPO), have compromised the distribution of social grants in Endumeni. This study
recommends establishing the State Bank (SB) as the country’s distributor of social grants
because a government-to-government system between SASSA and SB could speed up the
process of distributing social grants at a low cost, unlike the outsourced private banks that are
profit-driven. The Sustainable Social Security Model (S3M) output is a pivotal contribution to
this study’s knowledge because the current social grants system inadequately empowers the
beneficiaries to engage in supplementary livelihoods strategies (such as agricultural activities)
to top-up social grants as these grants are insufficient to cover the needs of beneficiaries. The
S3M suggests that the government must empower the beneficiaries of social grants to enhance
their well-being by utilising assets such as land available in their areas to generate livelihoods
as a supplementary mechanism to social grants. This requires the government to expedite the
process of land expropriation without compensation for equal distribution, especially land that
was unjustly confiscated from rightful owners on the basis that they were non-Europeans.
Description
Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.