In the fight against poverty and inequality, government has allocated R567-billion for social grant payments.

In 2019, grants for old age, disability, war veterans and care dependency grants will increase by R80.

The foster care grant will increase by R40 to R1 000 and the child support grant will increase to R420 in April, and R430 in October.

Finance Minister Tito Mboweni on Wednesday said R2.8-billion had been reprioritised to a new human resources grant, as well as R1-billion for medical interns.

A further R1-billion has been added to raise the wages of community healthcare workers to R3 500 a month, and R319-million has been allocated to eliminate malaria in South Africa.

With regard to housing, government will continue its focus on supporting people to own their own homes, with funding totalling R14.7-billion over the two outer years of the medium-term expenditure framework having been reprioritised to two new conditional grants for informal settlement upgrades.

In turn, this will enable these households to have access to basic amenities.

The Help To Buy subsidy helps first-time home buyers purchase a home and, as a pilot, has been allocated R950-million over three years.