Millions of individuals discontinued receiving the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant due to the qualifying criteria being changed.
However, lobby groups and the public were not happy as many beneficiaries of the grant were at the receiving end of such changes.
The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) responded by adjusting its means test threshold from R350, being in line with the country’s poverty rate of R624 per person per month. This came into effect from 1 July 2022.
In the first three months under the regulations, the Department of Social Development said they faced serious challenges which resulted in a two-month delay in grant implementation.
Sassa’s General Manager Brenton van Vrede explained that everytime threshold regulations are amended, all financial banks have to also update their algorithms, so that they will be able to assess Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant applicants.
However, the government agency has confirmed that August payments have been released from the 21st of September 2022.
Should you not be able to collect your SRD grant, it is advisable that you check your grant status, and then you will be able to also see if your application was successful for specific months and payment dates.
Sassa had explained that if you are approved with no pay date, it means payment has not been processed as yet, however, payment will be processed soon.
All approved SRD grant beneficiaries, who have not yet been paid, have been urged to check the status of bank verification, and if need be, correct their banking details.
It is for this reason that Sassa’s General Manager Brenton van Vrede has been pleading with SRD applicants to meet the government agency halfway by being a little bit more diligent when they put their bank account details into the application system, so that payments can be made.
