Being able to meet basic needs enables individuals and families to move from day-to-day existence toward the capacity to look to the future. Unfortunately, not everyone can fulfil it. This is largely due to an increase in poverty. Fortunately, the South African government generously provides basic services to address the problem.
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Poor households have to struggle to meet their needs for a brighter future. Such a future could hold a steady job, a place to call their own – less time spent on the almost impossible decisions of a warm coat for a child, filling a prescription, something nutritious for supper.
Knowing that it will not be an easy fight, the South African government is planning programmes around basic services to improve the lives of people. These include:
- Housing
- Education
- Healthcare
- Social welfare
- Electricity and energy
- Water
- Sanitation and refuse and waste removal
Furthermore, some of those services are available free of charges like water and sanitation.
The following guide can help you gain access to these services, or even better yet: You will also learn how to claim free basic services that the South African government aims for poor households.
1. Housing Subsidies and Support Services
In 1994 millions of people in our country stayed in informal houses, overcrowded backyard shacks or far from where they worked. The housing backlog and the slum living conditions it created was a central concern of the new government.
To address this situation, the government committed itself to find ways that the poor could access affordable housing. In September 2004, the government released a comprehensive housing plan for the following five years.
This plan, called “Breaking New Ground”, includes the development of low-cost housing, a stronger emphasis on medium-density housing, affordable rental accommodation, the strengthening of partnerships with private housing developers, social infrastructure, and amenities.
Since 1994, the government has approved housing subsidies for 1.7 million households and constructed over one and a half million housing units. There are, however, many more challenges to be met to ensure that all South Africans are fully afforded their constitutional right to safe, secure housing.
How to Qualify for a Housing Subsidy
A subsidy is a grant of money that does not have to be paid back. This money does not go directly to the homeowner. Instead, it goes to the developer that is building the house. The developer can be a private company, a local authority, or a community organisation.
To qualify for a housing subsidy, you must:
- Be a South African citizen;
- Be over 21 years of age;
- Have a total household income of less than R 3500 per month;
- Be married or live with a partner or be single and have dependents (children you are responsible for); and
- Never have owned a house or a property anywhere in South Africa.
It is very important to warn people who want to apply for a housing subsidy of the following:
- They will only ever get one housing subsidy (except for consolidation subsidy) so they must use it wisely; and
- The names of both partners go on the database. If you split up with your partner you will not get another subsidy with your new partner.
How to Apply for a Housing Subsidy
First of all, applicants must prepare the following important documents to apply:
- Applicant and spouse’s Identity Documents
- Birth certificates of children
- Proof of income if working (Salary Slip)
Next, submit the documents to either the Provincial Department of Human Settlements or your Local Municipality.
If you have further questions about this flagship program of the South African government basic services, you can check the following FAQs published by the National Department of Human Settlements.
2. School Fee Exemption Policy
Education is funded from the government budget and is supplemented through school fees and/or school fundraising. The South African Schools Act of 1996 allows for learners from poor families to be exempted from paying school fees.
The School Fee Exemption policy says that each school, through its school governing body (SGB), must determine fees and inform parents and caregivers about the exemption policy. Eligibility for full and partial school fee exemptions is worked out based on parental income concerning the fees.
How to Qualify for School Fee Exemption
The law says the following families can qualify for a total or partial exemption from school fees:
1. Where the breadwinner’s annual salary is less than ten times the amount of the school fee.
So for example, if a parent is a domestic worker who earns R800 per month then she will earn R9,600 per year. If the school fees are R1,000 per year, then ten times the school fees are R10,000, this is more than the domestic worker earns in a year. She is therefore entitled to an exemption or a reduction in fees.
2. Where the combined income of the mother and father is less than 30 times the annual school fee.
For example, if the joint income of the mother and father is R1,500 per month and the annual school fee is R700 per year:
12 x R1,500 = R18,000 per year
30 x the school fees of R700 = R21,000
Because their total income is less than 30 x the fees they will qualify for a partial reduction of fees.
How to Apply for School Fee Exemption
To apply for a reduction in fees, the parent must do the following:
- Write a letter to the School Governing Body (SGB) requesting to be exempted in part or totally from fees.
- Provide a payslip or letter from the employer explaining how much the parent earns.
- If the parent is unemployed, or self-employed, they should make an affidavit saying what they earn or how they support the child, for example, on a pension or a child care grant.
You can check where the nearest SGB is in your province on this National Department of Basic Education webpage.
3. Health
The health of all citizens is very important for the development of a country. Everyone has the right to access basic health care services and medical treatment.
The Department of Health (DOH) aims to create a caring and humane society in which all South Africans have access to affordable and good quality health care. The overall approach to achieving this is contained in its Health Sector Strategic Framework 1999 – 2004 document.
The DOH is striving to:
- Build on the achievements, since 1994, in improving access to care and advancing equity;
- Deal decisively with the HIV and AIDS epidemic and its impact on the family, education, economy, workplace and the broader society; and
- Improve the functioning of our hospitals and clinics.
Since 1994 free healthcare has been introduced for pregnant women and children under 7. It will soon be extended to disabled people.
Hundreds of new clinics have been built to extend primary health care to communities. Doctors now have to do compulsory community service so that people in rural areas can have access to better medical care.
4. Social Developments and Grants
The South African government created many programmes to provide basic services and eradicate poverty.
Programmes that will lessen poverty in the long term include education and capacity development, land redistribution, promoting economic development and job creation, and many more.
However, perhaps nothing is as influential as giving a grant.
Types of Available Social Grants
The social grants that the South African government provides includes:
- Pension
- Disability Grant
- Foster Care Grant
- Care Dependency Grant
- Child Support Grant
- Social Relief
What You Need to Do to Apply for grants
Go to your nearest Department of Social Development office. If there is no office near you, go to the nearest magistrate’s court. You will need different papers for different grants.
Then, the social worker will give you a list. On your first visit, take your ID book and any other proof you have that may be needed for the application. Here are some examples:
- Your ID document;
- Medical certificate;
- Proof of income and assets;
- Marriage certificate;
- Death certificate of parents and birth certificate of children if you are looking after orphans;
- Affidavit from birth mother if the children’s real parents are still alive to say why you are taking care of them and that she agrees with you doing that; and
- Letter from your employer if you have any income.
5. Free Basic Electricity (FBE)
Free Basic Electricity is the amount of electricity that is deemed sufficient to provide basic electricity services to a poor household.
This amount of energy will be sufficient to provide basic lighting, basic media access, basic water heating using a kettle and basic ironing in terms of grid electricity and basic lighting and basic media access for non-grid systems.
The levels of service are 50kWh per household per month for a grid-based system for qualifying domestic consumers, and 50W per non-grid connected supply system for all households connected to the official non-grid systems.
Users who have pre-paid electricity meters will be able to see when the free electricity is used up and will have to buy more electricity at their own expense. Users with conventional or credit meters will not be able to see easily when they have used up their units. They will be charged for additional use at the end of each month.
Consumers who do not have access to grid electricity could be provided with non-grid electricity by their municipalities. You should contact your municipality to find out the type of alternative sources of energy provided.
How to Apply for FBE Electricity
To claim the benefit, you should visit their nearest vendor. Alternatively, USSD codes *130*869# or *130*269# are available to already configured customers to claim the benefit via a cell phone at no charge to you.
If you are verified to receive free services, you will receive the expected units.
6. Free Basic Water (FBW)
Free Basic Water consists of at least a basic amount of 6kl (6,000 litres) of water per month per household. This amount may differ among municipalities and you should contact your municipality directly to find out exactly what the free basic water service is that they provide. You are required to pay for water that is used over and above the free supply.
Durban was the first South African city to introduce a policy of free basic water in 1998. After Thabo Mbeki became President of South Africa in 1999 and a cholera outbreak occurred in 2000, the African National Congress promised free basic water during a municipal election campaign in December 2000.
In July 2001 free basic water became a national policy through a revised tariff structure that included at least 6 “kilolitres” (cubic meters) of free water per month (40 litres per capita per day for a family of five or 25 litres per capita per day for a family of eight). The policy was being implemented gradually within the means of each municipality.
7. Basic Household Sanitation Policy
Sanitation means collecting and getting rid – in a hygienic manner – of waste, including human excreta, household wastewater and rubbish. If this is not done, neighbourhoods become dirty and people get sick.
Sanitation is vital for good health. In South Africa, we already have 1, 5 million cases of diarrhoea (runny stomach) each year in children under 5, as well as outbreaks of cholera. Other health problems associated with poor sanitation include dysentery, typhoid, malaria, bilharzia, worm infestations, eye infections, skin diseases and increased infections in HIV positive people. Good sanitation leads to increased life expectancy.
South Africa’s sanitation problem has two main causes:
- Lack of infrastructure (no toilets and no water for handwashing); and
- Poor hygiene (many people don’t realize that they need to wash their hands after defecating or changing nappies, and many think it’s fine to use the veld as a toilet).
Therefore, providing improved toilets is one part of the answer. Government has a constitutional responsibility to ensure that all South Africans have access to adequate sanitation. Key target areas will include rural, peri-urban and informal settlements where the need is greatest.
There are different potential sources of funding for sanitation improvement:
- Equitable Share
- Grants
- Municipalities’ own revenue
- Consolidated Municipal Infrastructure Programme (CMIP)
- Housing subsidies