As the extension date for the Social Relief of Distress grant runs down, proponents of a universal basic income grant say it's time to get behind an effective grant system that could fight poverty and inequality.

Some days a lifeline arrived as an SMS. For Daddy Mabe, the beep-beeping on his phone with a message that R350 had been deposited into his bank account from a government grant changed the day's fortunes.

"You can take 72 hours just to raise R20 when you have nothing, so when it happens that you get R350 at a go, it helps a lot. You can be sitting thinking how am I going to eat today and then that notification comes - you stand up, you have energy, you can go do a couple of things that need to be covered; it means a lot," Mabe says.

Mabe is an activist with #PayTheGrants. He received the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant - the so-called Covid grant - in 2022 and 2023 for just over a year before he found temporary work helping University of Johannesburg researchers with their fieldwork on grant recipients. At the time the grant was R350. Currently he's unable to...