Closing speech by GOOD MP Shaun August on the debate to implement the Basic Income Grant
12 March 2021
I appreciate that almost everyone of us in support of the Basic Income Grant.
And I want to thank Minister Zulu for committing to take up this issue with her Executive colleagues to start this process.
I agree, that it is a question of how soon we can implement it.
Let me remind this House, that the Minister of Finance introduced Zero Based Budgeting. So although I mentioned earlier that the BIG is not a new idea, we are entering a new budgeting approach. This places the responsibility for each of us to mobilise our respective parties to lobby for a Basic Income Grant.
It requires us to reduce nonessential budgets, reduce waste and stop corruption so that we can have more funds available for critical spending like the BIG.
All municipalities, provinces and national departments and SOEs must cut their waste and spending to support the country in this effort.
Every study on BIG has shown that it is affordable … if government prioritises in the right places.
Pilots on Basic Income Grants have already been run in countries like Iran, Morocco, Mexico, Phillipines and Indonesia.
To my colleague the Honourable Wessels from the Freedom Front plus, a basic income grant pilot in Namibia found that the majority of people in the community were able to increase their work or self-employment and that income has risen more than the amount of the grants.
The evidence also found a decrease in child malnutrition.
Honourable Chair
The evidence is overwhelmingly in support of the BIG – and the need for this essential relief is critical.
We cannot afford not to fund BIG. Extreme poverty is like COVID. It is upon us, whether we like it or not, but the action to reduce its impact is within our collective action.
In the same way we had to reprioritise budgets to respond to Covid, we must look to also reprioritise our budgets to address extreme poverty and inhumane hunger.
We could not afford to ignore Covid and we cannot afford to ignore extreme poverty.
I thank all the political parties for their overwhelming support for the BIG and hope to see this same level of vocal support during this year’s budget debates and votes.
The Basic Income Grant is a good idea and is essential to overcome extreme poverty and inhumane hunger.
Since there is no opposition to the grant expressed here, I trust our government will finally implement it and implement it now.