Traditional and contemporary social assistance measures in South Africa : a historical perspective

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Date: 01 January 2013
• Published date: 01 January 2013
• DOI: 10.10520/EJC153138
• Pages: 308-328
• Published By: UNISA Press
• Author: Gugulethu Nkosi

Traditional and contemporary social

assistance measures in South Africa: A

historical perspective*

Gugule thu Nk osi **

1 Introdu ction

In South Africa, social assistance is provided for both in the Constitution and in the

legislation. Section 27 of the Constitution provides that everyone has the right to

have access to: health care services, sufficient food and water and social security,

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including appropriate social assistance if they are unable to support themselves and

their dependants. Section 27(2) further provides that the state has a duty to take

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reasonable legislative and other measures within available resources to achieve the

progressive realisation of each of the rights set out in section 27(1).

While the Constitution does not define social assistance, the Social

Assistance Act does provide a narrow definition of what social assistance is. It

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defines social assistance as ‘a social grant including social relief of distress’.5

Therefore, in terms of the legisla tion, social assistance is limited to a monetary

grant. The Taylor Committee adopted a similar viewpoint in defining social

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assistance. It defines social assistance as ‘state provided basic minimum

protection to relieve poverty, essentially subject to qualifying criteria on a non-

contributory basis’.

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This article forms part of my broader doctoral research.

*

BProc LLB (UDW now UKZN); LLM (Wits). Senio r Lecturer.

**

Section 27(1)(a).

1

Id 27(1)(b).

2

Id 27(1)(c).

3

Social Assistance Act 13 of 2004.

4

Section 1.

5

Section 1 of the Social Assistance Act defines a social grant as a child support grant, a care

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dependency grant, a foster child grant, a disability grant, an older person’s grant, a war veteran’s

grant and a grant-in-aid.

Taylor Commission‘Transforming the present – protecting the future: Report of the Committee of

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Inquiry into a comprehensive system of social security for South Africa’ (2002) available at

http://www.polity.org.za/govdocs/reports/welfare/findoc/chapter2.pdf (accessed 2010-06-10).

Tra dition al and con tempo rary socia l assis tance mea sures in So uth A frica 309

South African scholar s like Olivier and Kalula explain social assistance in

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broader terms. They categorise social assistance in terms of the provision of

various kinds of social services as well as the payment of social grants. According

to Olivier and Kalula, social assistance entails more than providing a social grant.

Social assistance includes rendering a service or services for the purposes of

reducing and eventually eradicating poverty.

International instruments generally do not distinguish between social

assistance and social security. They refer to the broad concept of ‘social security’

which encompasses, among other things, social compensation, income distribution

and social assistance. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

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provides for the right to social security in an event of lack of resources. So does

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the United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural

Rights and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. In all the

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said legal instruments, the clauses on social security do not explicitly prescribe the

rights that ought to be promoted through social security. However, since the

jurisprudence on socio-economic rights emphasises the view that socio-economic

rights are interrelated, interdependent and indivisible, it can also be safely said

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that through social assistance, beneficiaries should be able to enjoy access to

socio-economic rights in general. Therefore, social assistance aims at lifting the

poor out of poverty by realising their socio-economic rights. Social assistance is an

anti-poverty strategy which entails not only a monetary grant which is a gateway to

the minimum standard of living, but also substantial rehabilitation of the poor,

through the realisation of socio-economic rights in general.

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For the purposes of this discussion, I adopted the broader view of social

assistance. This paper provides a historical analysis of traditional and

contemporary social assistance measures employed in South Africa, from the

pre-colonial era until the present era. Firstly, it provides insight into how poverty

and social assistance were and are perceived. Secondly, it gives an analysis of

Olivier and Kalula ‘Scope and coverage’ in Olivier, Smit and Kalula (eds) Social security: A legal

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analysis (2003) 143.See also Nkosi ‘An analysis of the South African social assistance system as it

applies to children in rural communities: A perspective from the Grootboom case’ (2011) 26 SAPL 84.

International instruments refer to social secu rity and social assistance interchangeably.

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Article 26. The Convention on the Rights of a Child was ratified in 1995.

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Article 9. The South African governm ent has approved that South Africa ratify the International

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Covenant on Econ omic, Social and Cultural Rights. See http://www.communitylawcentre.org.za

(accessed 2013-07-13).

Article 20(2)(a). The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child was ratified in 2002.

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The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights available at http://www.ohchr.org

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/Documents/Publications/FactSheet16rev.1en.pdf (accessed 2012-11-13); See also Grant

‘Accountability for human rights abuses: Taking the universality, indivisibility, interdependence and

interrelatedness of human rights seriousl y’ (2007) 32 SAYIL 166-171.

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights http://www.ohchr.org/Documen ts

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/Publications/FactSheet16rev.1en.pdf (access ed 2012-11-13). See also Grant (n 13) 166-171.