Civil society groups to protest for extension of COVID-19 grant There will be #PayTheGrants pickets in various provinces at Sassa offices and at post offices. A South African Social Security Agency office in Pretoria. Picture: Kayleen Morgan/Eyewitness News
13 hours ago
CAPE TOWN - Demonstrations will be held across the country on Friday calling on government to extend the COVID-19 social relief of distress grant.
There will be #PayTheGrants pickets in various provinces at Sassa offices and at post offices.
On Thursday, the Black Sash held a webinar with faith-based organisations, trade unions and civic groups about the issue.
The R350 grant comes to an end on Friday.
Plight of beneficiaries raised in a bid to extend Covid-19 distress grant after deadline
By Shakirah Thebus
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Cape Town - The plight of domestic workers, farmworkers and informal traders, were raised in calls for the Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant to be extended, proven as a lifeline during the pandemic.
The Black Sash and #PayTheGrants hosted a virtual press conference on Thursday, concerning the SRD grant to come to an end today, Friday.
The special R350 grant was one of the major Covid-19 mitigating measures in place, as the country entered into a hard lockdown, later extended into 2021.
SAA business rescue process comes to an end Updated
Nokukhanya N Mntambo
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Business rescue practioners at South African Airways (SAA) have filed a notice of substantial implementation, signalling their exit from the airline.
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SAA was placed under business rescue in December 2019 to allow for restructuring and in a bit to make the national carrier financially viable.
Various unions, including the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu), wanted business rescuers Les Matuson and Siviwe Dongwana out much sooner after they expressed concerns that the job hadn t been done.
The BRPs are handing over to the SAA Interim Board a solvent business, said the department s spokesperson Richard Mantu.
Bloodbath in banking sector
A bloodbath is beckoning in the banking sector with several local lenders eliminating jobs as part of drastic actions to curtail spiralling costs and rationalise their operations in a difficult operating environment.
The job carnage could turn to be worse in the second half of the year as more lenders are expected to put more employees on the chopping block in response to the realities of soaring costs, digitisation and Covid-19 pandemic, which have piled misery on the banks.
Zimbabwe Banks and Allied Workers Union assistant secretary general Shepherd Ngandu, sounded the alarm bells over the job carnage in the sector.
Social development minister Lindiwe Zulu has asked National Treasury to extend the grant 29 April 2021 - 14:36 The Black Sash has called for the R350 Covid-19 grant to be extended until it is turned into a basic income guarantee. File photo. Image: South African Government via Twitter
The Black Sash says there is no rationale for the special Covid-19 social relief of distress (SRD) grant of R350 to be terminated.
“Many people have relied on the grant which kept them from starvation,” Black Sash national advocacy manager Hoodah Abrahams-Fayker said on Thursday.
She was addressing a media briefing on the eve of the termination of the SRD grants, which are set to expire on Friday.