Government is also looking at implementing a multi-pronged strategy in a bid to fight poverty.(SABC)
Tags:
Job seekers will soon be eligible for government social grants to assist them in their efforts to find a job.
Social Development Minister, Bathabile Dlamini, made the announcement at the opening of a South African Social Security Agency office in Thembalethu near George in the Southern Cape.
She says her department will intensify efforts to fight the scourge of poverty and raise the living standards of the poor.
Thembalethu is home to over 570 000 residents, 170 000 of them are recipients of government grants. Government says the township, like many others across the country is faced by many challenges, with poverty being one of them. Many people in the area are employed as seasonal workers.
The Social Development Department says it has come up with a plan to hopefully turn things around for the better. Young people who find it difficult to penetrate the job market will soon receive allowances to cover their transport costs to find work.
Thembalethu residents have welcomed the Department's intervention.
Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini says government is also looking at implementing a multi-pronged strategy to ensure that families rise above the poverty line.
"One of the programmes that government has already started under the leadership of the minister of agriculture is the zero hunger programme and social development we are dealing with the food for all programme and then there other programmes that we are still busy with."
Thembalethu residents have welcomed the Department's intervention. Nomfusi Mtyhila, who owns a child care facility, says she's struggling to register her business due to government red tape. "For one I take care of the babies, some of the mothers are not working, they depend on social grants, it is very difficult, it is, I am very struggling I want to get registered but I can't because of the finances, I am struggling," says Mtyhila
Government says it will ensure that the vulnerable are protected through its welfare programmes.
