2024 year in review: SASSA old age grants

It’s been quite the year for SASSA Old Age Grants in 2024 when you look at it with the benefit of hindsight—the year started out beneath a dark looming cloud. We were five-months out from the May General Election, and all the ANC’s electioneering centred on South African Social Security Agency grants. The ANC, desperate to maintain control in government, trumpeted the success of its ‘pro-poor policies’ in a bid to secure the popular vote.

President Cyril Ramaphosa celebrated our 28-million grant recipients being the highest anywhere in Africa. Of these, 4-million elderly benefited from SASSA Old Age Grants. However, February’s budget speech from Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana had a different refrain. The minister was candidly outspoken about the population’s over-reliance on government grants. Because the Department of Social Development’s budget is drawn from just 7-million taxpayers. And this is an unsustainable equation in the longterm …

SASSA OLD AGE GRANTS 2024

Likewise, more than 150 000 SASSA profiles were suddenly suspended early in the year, seemingly for no reason. This left many SASSA recipients in a tough space, with the agency arguing it was not an IT malfunction. Instead, SASSA said it was due to incorrect banking details provided when applying. And that regular bank verification was best industry practice.

As the year built towards the May election, you had the EFF’s Julius Malema saying SASSA Old Age Grants in 2024 were insufficient and must be doubled. By raising them from R2 080 and R2 100 (at the time) to R4 180 per month beneficiaries could actually afford food, transport and electricity. This was in light of the fact that most recipients of SASSA Old Age Grants are supporting multiple family members in the household, according to a University of Cape Town (UCT) study.

APRIL 2024 INCREASES

Folding to civilian pressure, the ANC top brass finally increased SASSA SRD grants from R350 to R370 in April to try win favour at the polls. Likewise, SASSA Old Age Grants increased over Easter to R2 180 (60 years old) and R2 200 (over 75 years old), respectively. But there was more trouble emerging about the security of the SASSA system and identity theft. As a result, key changes were implemented by the DSD on the recovery process of irregular payments and suspension of accounts.

Newly gazetted regulations now said the department could take back and “recover all monies paid to any person in the event that such a person was not entitled to benefit from the grant”. This represented a zero-tolerance approach to any questionable activity and saw the implementation of biometric verification to halt identify theft. Something many poor beneficiaries have battled with ever since.

MINISTER ZULU OUSTED

Following the May 2024 election, the country underwent a new dawn through the Government of National Unity (GNU). The population had spoken, and the ANC majority was out. So was Minister Lindiwe Zulu. In her place came Minister Sisisi Tolashe to oversee all DSD and SASSA activities. Formerly the President of the ANC Women’s League (ANCWL), Al Jama-ah’s Ganief Hendricks was named as her deputy minister.

Minister Tolashe’s term in office started off relatively smoothly, and many celebrated the SASSA Old Age Grants increase in October. This raised benefits to R2 190 (60 years old) and R2 210 (75 and older). But there was trouble on the horizon internally. The minister suspended SASSA CEO Busisiwe Memela with pay and replaced her with Gauteng Regional Executive Themba Matlou as acting CEO with immediate effect. This is until a full investigation into Memela’s appointment is complete.

OUTLOOK FOR 2025

The first SASSA Old Age Grants disbursed in the New Year take place on Friday 3 January 2025. And, beyond that, Finance Minister Godongwana approved a R2.7-billion increase in social welfare spending for 2025 in his mid-term budget statement. And while there is still no official word on what the SASSA grant increases will be in April 2025, you can click HERE to read all about our predicted 5% increase.