Millions of South Africans were adversely impacted when their Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant payments was not paid out on time. This resulted in a backlog, however, the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) took the approach of prioritizing its existing backlog, mostly being reconsiderations.
The national Department of Social Development has reminded applicants that they will be considered for the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant from the month in which their application was lodged.
The department said that this will be validated every month, meaning that applications lodged in April will be considered from April 2024.
However, it has been reported that a number of Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant applicants hadn’t received their payments for the previous months.
General Manager of Grants Operation at the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa), Fanie Sethokga admitted that the government agency had a late start with processing applications, however, Sethokga has assured Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant beneficiaries that payments are being processed.
In an interview, Sethokga confirmed:
Sassa has scheduled April payments to be administered in July, on the other hand, May payments will be done in August.
The government agency confirmed that the appeal payments backlog will be made a priority.
This comes after some SRD beneficiaries have taken the steps of enquiring about their unreceived payments on social media platforms as they had applied for the grant months ago on social media platforms.
According to Sassa, the delays could have been a result of bank account verification, ID number being incorrect and other issues.
SRD grant applicants who had not updated their screening questions for the assessment of the April and May 2024 periods had until the end of 7 July 2024 to make changes on the SRD website.
The government agency shared that should applicants not pay any attention to the announcement, this would ultimately prevent their applications from being processed.
