The Department of Social Development (DSD) and the South African Social Security (Sassa) regularly receive requests to increase the R350 grant. However, the department’s minister has issued her response, despite having taken measures to address the issues.
The Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant has been the subject of several news headlines and complaints from its beneficiaries and applicants for a wide variety of reasons. One of the underlying issues is that the actual R350 amount that Sassa pays out every month is not enough to cover a recipient’s necessities.
Thus, several civic organisations have been calling for it to be increased to R624, which is the country’s poverty line. With the R350 grant currently on its third cycle, these calls have only grown stronger in terms of frequency.
In response the Minister of Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu stated that although they are currently working on making the grant’s increase possible, the department currently can not afford it and will have to find the funds.
WE DON’T HAVE THE MONEY BUT WE HAVE TO FIND THE MONEY.
So for the current cycle, the R350 grant has not officially increased which means that the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) will continue to disburse the R350 grant as is to all qualifying beneficiaries and applicants.
However, what tends to lead to a misunderstanding regarding the subject of the grant being increased is that on Tuesday 16 August, the minister gazetted the new regulation to increase the income threshold to R624, which is the food poverty line set by Stats SA in September 2024.
This means anyone with a monthly income of more than R624 a month will not qualify for the grant.
