Sassa has approved millions of clients to receive grant payments for the Social Relief of Distress grant. However, some have not yet received their payments.
The Social Relief of Distress Grant (SRD Grant), was introduced with the aim of providing financial assistance to those who do not have any financial means to support themselves due to the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The grant has since gone through a number of changes, such as adjusted monthly income threshold and a verification process that is used to make sure that the SRD grant is paid to the correct person.
Millions of SRD clients’ applications have been approved, but payments have not yet been made to some of them. In a recent statement by the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa), the following has been announced:
Clients who have been approved for the SRD grant but no payment date is indicated on their January status or earlier months, have been urged to and have selected to be paid through Postbank or Cashsend are urged to open bank accounts and upload them on the system to fast-track payments.
According to Sassa’s CEO Busisiwe Memela-Khambula, another reason for non-payments include SRD grant beneficiaries uploading incorrect bank 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 more diligent when they put their bank account details into the application system, so that payments can be made on time.
Beneficiaries of this, grant beneficiaries undergo a means test to ensure that they still qualify for the grant. This is done on a monthly basis.
The government agency works with financial banks to conduct its means test and clients have been advised to check their SRD grant status to see if they still qualify for the grant.
Should one’s application status be approved and if there’s also a payment date, then the individual may collect their funds at merchants/retail outlets.
To make sure that the grant funds are accessed by the correct person, Sassa has introduced new measures to protect SRD grant recipients.
