Minister of Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu, made amendments to the Social Assistance Act which sets out new qualifying criteria for the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant.
The changes will see more people qualify for the crucial relief measure as the income threshold has been increased to R624.
Other significant changes are that bank verification will no longer be the main criteria for determining eligibility and there will be no need for beneficiaries to answer questionnaires every three months to show that they qualify and need the grant.
When the R350 grant was introduced under the Social Assistance Act in April 2022, several changes were made to the qualifying criteria. One major change saw the income threshold lowered from R595 to R350.
The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) said a consequence of this change resulted in around 5 million people receiving the SRD grant. This was less than half of the 11 million people who benefited from the grant under the previous income threshold.
However, after the minister gazetted the latest amendments, the income threshold has been raised to the food poverty line of R624 per month. This means that people will now be allowed to earn up to R624 or have that amount of money in their bank account and still qualify for the grant.
Sassa is also calling grants beneficiaries to ensure they provide their correct bank account details. This, as any mistakes made with your banking account information could result in you not being paid the R350 grant.
Despite the changes which will result in more people qualifying for the SRD grant, civil groups believe that more needs to be done to support vulnerable citizens.
