Pretoria - Anyone disqualified from receiving the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant as a result of earning more than R350 can breathe a sigh of relief as the new regulations will allow more people to receive grants.
The Department of Social Development and South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) announced that the low number of approved applications for the Covid-19 SRD and public outcry over regulations that unfairly excluded applicants prompted it to make the necessary changes.
Last month, Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu gazetted changes to be made concerning the R350 grant, effectively increasing the income threshold for the means test from R350 a month to R624, from the food poverty line.
Sassa spokesperson Paseka Letsatsi said this meant that applicants who had an inflow of funds in their bank accounts of less than R624, for that particular month, would qualify to receive the grant from August 2022.
Letsatsi said the state agency welcomed the new development, and was hopeful that a greater number of qualifying applicants would have access from the beginning of August. The agency had already received just under 12 million applications.
“Before the changes to the means test, a lot of people were automatically disqualified even if they had R351 in their account.
“We’re hoping that at the very least changing the threshold will see more people being able to access these funds.”
Letsatsi said in spite of the agency experiencing slight delays and challenges with assessments for July, following the new regulations, the assessments would soon be concluded.
He said challenges experienced were due to the regulation requiring people to reconfirm their grants every three months, many of which had not been reconfirmed.
“We are still having challenges with some payments where some applicants have not provided their banking details.
“We encourage all applicants to provide us with their correct bank details so that we can timeously facilitate their grant payments,” said Zulu.
The department stressed the payment amount of the Covid-19 SRD grant remained R350 a person for each month that they qualified for it.
Pretoria News