Key changes coming for SASSA grants

SASSA grants disbursed by the South African Social Security Agency are enjoying an increase across the board from this month (April) onwards. Therefore, paying out today (Wednesday 3 April), the first of the increased SASSA grants is Older Persons: R2 180 (over 60) and R2 200 (over 75).

And this is followed tomorrow (Thursday 4 April) by the Disability grant: R2 180. And on Friday 5 April sees payment of all SASSA grants related to childcare. These take the form of R2 180 for Child Dependency, R1 180 for Foster Care and R530 for Child Support. Then, we have Social Relief of Distress (SRD), which goes up by R20 to R370 at the end of the month.

KEY CHANGES TO SASSA GRANTS

Moreover, a report by Business Tech explains new operational changes to SASSA grants. Essentially, the Department of Social Development (DSD) has amended the recovery process of irregular payments. It has gazetted a regulation that empowers the department to “recover all monies paid to any person in the event that such a person was not entitled to benefit from the grant”.

This is a big deal for the 8-million-plus recipients receiving SRD grants each month. The South African gets numerous messages monthly from SRD beneficiaries who are denied benefits or are waiting for them to be back paid. It seems this amendment is only going to make the process harder with further exclusions.

INSTANT SUSPENSION  

Furthermore, the department can now suspend any SASSA grants if the beneficiaries do not keep their details up to date. And grants will automatically lapse if and when a beneficiary passes away. The latter is due to thousands of irregular payments being made to beneficiaries who are not eligible for SASSA grants or who have passed away.

Therefore, this process is part of the DSD’s promise to tighten the reins on SASSA grants when it was announced SRD would increase to R370. The increase is slated to cost government an additional R2.2 billion it had not budgeted for. Hence the desire to eliminate any and all erroneous payments.

RISK OF DELIBERATE DISQUALIFICATION

Civil society groups are up in arms over the increased SRD SASSA grants. They say the R20 is nowhere near enough to keep pace with rising inflation. They argue it should pay closer to R440 per month. And they argue that more people who need it will be deliberately excluded to keep the number of grants down. SRD SASSA grants will run till March 2025. However, depending on the outcome of the 2024 General Elections, they could be extended to March 2027.

ALSO READ: April SASSA payments: Older Person’s Grants available today