George Herald | R60 relief for disabled and elderly in budget

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R60 relief for disabled and elderly in budget
14:10 (GMT+2), Wed, 22 February 2012

NATIONAL NEWS - There was little for the elderly and the disabled to cheer about in Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's Budget speech on Wednesday.

Pensioners over the age of 75 and people with disabilities would see a R60 increase in their monthly government grant in the coming year, he said in the National Assembly.

"The monthly state old age pension and the disability and care dependency grants will rise, by R60 a month, to R1,200, or R1,220 for pensioners over the age of 75," Gordhan said.

Social welfare priorities for the year included early childhood development programmes and the Isibindi childcare and protection programme, he said.

These were initiatives which had strong community-based employment benefits and would be allocated an additional R1.4 billion over the medium term, or next three years.

Gordhan said foster care grants would increase by R30, to R770.

The child support grant would increase to R280.

He said National Treasury was "mindful" that these increases could be reassessed if inflation continued to rise.

Source : Sapa