The Democratic Alliance on Tuesday released its social development policy, which aims to break the cycle of poverty by extending opportunities to all South Africans.

Briefing the media at Parliament, DA leader Helen Zille said, to ensure that children living in poverty benefited from a child support grant, the legal guardian of a child would have to demonstrate that he or she had brought the child into a clinic for regular health check-ups, ensured that the child had received all his or her vaccinations, and made sure that the child had attended school at least 85 percent of the time.

If the mother of a child was below the age of 18, the grant would go to the legal guardian of the mother until the mother turned 18.

Voluntary service

To assist young adults, the DA would implement a system whereby South African citizens aged between 16 and 24 would be able to register to perform voluntary community service.

The state would provide opportunities for 300 000 young people a year to perform this service for a 12-month period to acquire marketable skills.

Young people with appropriate backgrounds and skills would be encouraged to volunteer in the SA Police Service (SAPS) or SA National Defence Force (SANDF) for a period of one year, in non-combative roles.

"We will also implement a Youth Development Programme to empower unemployed youth at risk of falling into crime," Zille said.

In addition to general life-skills and financial literacy, participants would receive on the-job-learning.

They would leave the programme with a credible employer reference and essential work experience.

Opportunity voucher

A DA government would also provide an opportunity voucher (to a maximum of R6000) to any young person who successfully completed matric, voluntary community service or the Youth Development Programme.

The voucher could be used to fund further education or as start-up capital for a small business.

To assist adults who currently fell through the social security safety net, the DA would introduce a basic income grant of R110 a month for all South Africans earning below R46 000 a year, and who did not receive any other state grant.

Regarding the elderly, the DA would implement measures that provided the opportunity for all working South Africans (and ultimately all South Africans) to have a sustainable pension on retirement.

"We will abolish the expensive and impractical means test for the state old age pension and provide a universal old age pension for all South Africans."

Zille said these proposals had been formulated on the basis of interactions with stakeholders in civil society, and had been carefully costed.

"They put paid to the idea — punted by the ANC — that the DA is a party for the middle-class.

Ongoing policy review

"Our ongoing policy review also contradicts [ANC president] Jacob Zuma's claim that the opposition has no workable alternative policies.

"I intend sending this policy, and the others that the DA has released thus far, to Mr Zuma, and challenging him to a series of policy debates ahead of the next election," Zille said.

Eradicating poverty had to be the number one priority for government, but transfers from the state would never eradicate poverty in a developing country.

The only way to eradicate poverty was through sustained job-creating economic growth and a significantly improved education system.

"This is the focus of the DA's policies. If we are to take poverty eradication seriously, we need an approach that gives people the support they require to take responsibility for their own lives.

"For the DA, welfare is a hand-up, not a hand-out. It is designed to lift people out of poverty in the long term, not just alleviate it in the short term," Zille said.

Sapa

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