Editorial | Cyril, stop lying to voters about social grants and Nsfas

City-PressJan 13, 2024Read original

How nauseating and cowardly for President

to pronounce on a public platform that social grants would disappear should the South African electorate fail to vote to retain his party in power in this year’s

.

It is understandable that the governing

is desperate to stay in power and is using almost everything in its dwindling arsenal to stave off defeat staring it in the face. But it is still shocking that a sitting president would go to this extreme. This is fear-mongering on steroids.

Ramaphosa is behaving like a tinpot dictator of a banana republic where there is no constitution and what the ruler chooses to say is gospel truth. Ramaphosa is telling a despicable lie.

are not a result of the ANC’s generosity. The party is bankrupt, as we all know, but the grants are a necessary state intervention to alleviate poverty no matter who is in power.

Research has shown how this safety net has improved, and in some cases even saved, the lives of millions of South Africans, many of whom would have starved to death. The efficacy of social grants cannot be overstated.

For many years,

has written in unequivocal support of social grants as a necessary intervention in the alleviation of poverty and sheer hunger. We have, however, also raised concerns about how these grants were being administered or disbursed.

We have raised the alarm at the many loopholes some corrupt public servants are able to exploit in order to steal the funds meant for the indigent.

We have exposed some of these miscreants, many of whom are associated with the very ANC that is now peddling fear around the future of social grants.

That there is even talk or fear about the future of social grants is as a result of the very ANC which, in its looting, has not spared funds meant to give succour to those who are indigent such that they cannot put bread on the table.

In making his false assertion, Ramaphosa is capitalising on the fact that many uneducated and ill-informed South Africans still believe that the ANC has a way of finding out how an individual has voted each time we go to the polls.

Dear South Africans, the grants will not disappear if the ANC loses the elections. Dear South Africans, your vote is your secret.