"I spent $3.30 to get here and I'll spend another $3.30 to go home."
This article originally appeared in the Pietermaritzburg Sun on 2022-02-18. It caught my attention since, for a time, I was living off that amount and spending $3.30 to get to work and back. I have changed the figures to dollar amounts in order to make it easier for a wider audience to comprehend the amounts. If you've never lived on a diet consisting mainly of bread, peanut butter, yogurt and vegetables or gone to work hungry, never "borrowed" money you know full well you can't pay back, you probably can't relate.
With the average cost of a household food basket in Pietermaritzburg costing about $282.60, what gets left out when the city's unemployed COVID-19 grant recipients cut their pies as thin as possible to provide for themselves and their dependents, on only $26.50 a month?
The Pietermaritzburg Sun correspondents (Jade le Roux and Shorné Bennie) spoke to some COVID-19 relief grant recipients, who queued in snaking lines in the rain outside the city's main post office while waiting to receive their February grant money, to find out what $26.50 looks like to each individual.
According to the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity (PEJD), who tallies the monthly cost of a food basket for lower income families and tracks inflation levels on a monthly and yearly basis, as of 2022-01-26, the cost of a basic nutritious diet for a family of four is $202.41. In Pietermaritzburg, based on market-related prices from the city's most affordable supermarkets, the cost of a monthly household food basket is $282.60.
Of that amount, the price of core foods, defined by PEJD as "foods prioritised and bought first [to ensure] that families do not go hungry whilst ensuring that meals can be cooked" is currently priced at $155.42. This is a $9.62 increase from January 2021 and a $2.42 increase from December 2021.
"When the prices of core foods increase, there is less money to secure other important and mostly nutritionally rich foods, which are essential for health and well-being, as well as strong immune systems ... The high cost of core staple foods results in a lot of proper nutritious food being removed from off the family plates. The consequences of high costs on the core foods has a negative impact on overall household health and well-being, and child development", PEJD notes in their January 2022 Household Affordability Index Report (HAIR).
For local COVID-19 relief grant recipient NJ Sindane, who lost his job in April 2021 [(close to when I lost mine, in May that year)] and has been receiving the grant since then [which I haven't], $26.50 is a far stretch to feed his six children, all under the age of ten (10) years old.
"I stand in the queue, waiting for my $26.50, knowing it won't feed my family. I am just trying to survive. I have to borrow money sometimes. not knowing how I am going to pay it back. $26.50 is too little to survive on [sic]", he said.
Thandi Ngcobo (42), of New Hanover, said she is hoping to buy groceries for her household with the $26.50 grant, but already, while standing in the queue, before she even gets her money, $6.60 of that is going towards transport for the day.
"I spent $3.30 to get here and I'll spend another $3.30 to go home. I am already hungry, but if I take more money from the grant to buy a meal to eat, I will only be able to afford mealie [(maize)] meal and potatoes for groceries. It is very tough, as I have not been working since last year", said Ngcobo.
Lead image by Monstera from/on Pexels