If the bill exceeds tax receipts then the end result will be a hit on the exchange rate(as the govt. prints money .. sorry, engages in quantitative easing). That affects imports, so the question is :- 'how reliant is South Africa on imports ? That will determine if this model is sustainable or not.

I'm not sure how much to trust a source called "The Investor" since the bias is obvious, but it depends on how much a "grant" is. Bloomberg's report last year (which had quite different numbers, so either things have changed tragically in under a year or this site is misreporting) says the average is $23 US per month which could be easily sustained depending on what taxpayers normally pay. (Plus there are other revenue sources, which Bloomberg noted was buoying everything.)

So? Massive inequality leads to this kind of thing. Nothing oniony about it.

A grant consists of R350 ($20.68) per month.

This is the same imbecile that said food doesn't come from farmers it comes from the grocery store, is anyone really surprised?

The current government of SA led to this

Democracy, what a concept.

Welfare in this country, like all other SOE type initiatives, is a huge problem.

The government doesn't create jobs, especially not for any other colour than black, think I am being racist, please go review the BEE policies, it will explain everything.

I think because there is no work, more and more people have to depend on the grants, once you do this, the government has control, in 1996 there were ± 3M people grants being paid, now it is almost 30M.

That should worry a lot of people.

Yeah blame welfare and not the decades of racism. Gee I wonder why nobody built anything of note in South Africa. Could it have been the all the sanctions ?

Not oniony. Just crypto reactionary South African posters.

Sanctions is when South Aftica thrived and many State Owned Enterpsises were started, tons of local businesses opened, many still highly successful to date.

"Thrived" supported by racists like Reagan and Thatcher.

I'm not talking about external support. I'm talking about locals putting their heads down and doing what was necessary to keep the economy going and growing.

Agreed, the past 30 years have been full of racism towards Indian, Coloured and white people, I mean, the EFF is literally singing and shouting this from the rooftops, and the ANC has anti Indian, coloured and white policies in place.

At least none of the SOEs in the sanction period failed, now without sanctions the current government lacks the ability to make it work.

Gee, I wonder why.

It's almost as if the rich racist assholes who were in power before made sure the new government couldn't work.