STEVEN FRIEDMAN: Plenty of good reasons to keep the Covid-19 grant
The bad reasons, that it will prevent voters from punishing the ANC for the pain it has caused, make sense too
Not for the first time, the government can sit and listen to the sound of jerking knees — or it can do something useful about poverty and growth. This time the conundrum is what to do about the special Covid-19 grant, which is due to expire soon.
The department of social development wants to extend it until the end of the financial year; researchers, among others, are urging the government to retain it permanently. As is customary in these cases, sections of the media have found economists to issue “dire” (and entirely fact-free) warnings about how this will ensure the country ends up resembling Zimbabwe. ..
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