After months of waiting, beneficiaries of the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant found out that they will soon receive outstanding grant payments for successful reconsideration requests. This means outstanding payments for June and the backlog related to April and May will also be addressed.
The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) said they will proceed with payments for the crucial relief measure later this month. The grant benefits more than 10 million people.
Sassa CEO Busisiwe Memela-Khambula said that the agency will begin to process June payments of the R350 grant on 22 June 2024 for all approved clients. This will then be followed by the payment of outstanding grant payments for the months of April and May.
She explained, “In the month of June 2024 we will pay for this month’s SRD R350 grant. In July we will start the backlog, starting with April assessments. May outstanding will be paid in August. We expect August to be on track to pay monthly grants beyond this period.”
Memela-Khambula explained that due to the change of the regulations under which the grant was provided, several changes need to be made to ensure that they remain in the budget allocation of R44 billion for the grant.
These changes included the introduction of a means test for all R350 grant applicants. A means test was previously only done when unsuccessful R350 grant applicants applied for reconsideration.
The introduction of a means test for all applicants led to delays in R350 grant payments. This is because Sassa had to make agreements with the banks in order to check a R350 grant applicants
“The final stages of signing contracts with the various banks have been wrapped up and data exchanges between Sassa and the bank continue. This means the payment for the new applications will start next week.” explained Memela-Khambula,
Sassa has previously announced that R350 grant payments that were related to reconsideration requests from the previous iteration of the grant will commence. This applies to the period of time between August 2024 and March 2024.
