MMC calls on the poor to register for ESP benefits

23 June 2017

 

The City of Johannesburg’s Member of the Mayoral Committee for Health and Social Development, Cllr Mpho Phalatse, has called on all the city’s indigent residents to register or re-register for the recently launched, much improved and more accessible Extended Social Package (ESP).

 

The City is on a drive to update its indigent register and is calling on all eligible individuals or vulnerable citizens – including the unemployed, the elderly and people with disabilities – to register or re-register to enjoy the ESP’s basket of benefits. The benefits include water, electricity, refuse removal and property rates rebates.

The move is in line with the City’s pro-poor agenda being spearheaded by the Executive Mayor, Cllr Herman Mashaba, who addressed the importance of the ESP in fighting poverty during his State of the City Address in May.

Speaking during an Open Day at the Roodepoort City Hall in Region C on Thursday June 22, MMC Phalatse encouraged indigent residents to attend the citywide workshops so they could be better informed about the ESP.

“Open days and regional community workshops will take place at [a number of] venues for new registrations and re-registrations,” Cllr Phalatse said.

“Normal registration will continue to take place at revenue customer service centres, clinics and public hospitals. The registrations are mandatory for new and existing beneficiaries,” she said.

Cllr Phalatse said for water and electricity benefits individuals did not need to be homeowners or to have their names on municipal accounts. She said individuals would further qualify for referral for initiatives such as skills development, social services, food resilience and youth programmes as well as homeless intervention programmes offered by a number of City departments.

To qualify, applicants must be South African citizens, live within the City of Johannesburg’s boundaries, unemployed or earning not more than R5308.20 a month.

Documents required include proof of income (for example, a South African Social Security Agency card), three months’ bank statement, identity document, electricity account or prepaid electricity card or meter number and a water account.

The ESP is renewable every six months.