The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) is responsible for distributing social support grants to financially vulnerable people living in South Africa. Questions have emerged about the consequences these grant beneficiaries may face if they do not collect their grant money.
Sassa distributes 19 million permanent grants which include the Older Persons pension grant, Disability grant, War Veterans grant, Care Dependency grant, Foster Child grant, Child Support grant, Child Support grant Top-Up and Grant-in-aid.
These grants are distributed to beneficiaries during the first few days of every month. Grant beneficiaries collect their money at Post Office branches, commercial banks and various retail outlets.
Sassa routinely reminds grant beneficiaries that they are not compelled to collect their money on the exact payment date. This is because once the money is paid into their account, it will remain there until the grant beneficiary wants to use it. However, what happens when a beneficiary does not collect their grant.
What happens to an unclaimed Sassa grant?
A social grant will lapse if a beneficiary fails to claim their money for a period of three consecutive months. This means that if you do not collect your grant payment for three months, you will no longer be a beneficiary of that grant.
Beneficiaries must note that the Sassa will inform them in a form of letter in advance that their social grant will lapse.
It is therefore critical that social grants recipients provide their correct contacts and addresses to avoid missing important communication from Sasssa .
Beneficiaries will have an opportunity to apply for restoration within 90 days from the date of the lapsing. If a beneficiary does not apply for the restoration of the social grant within 90 days of suspension, it can be interpreted as being unclaimed and will lapsed thereafter the beneficiary must reapply for the grant.
When applying for restoration of a social grant, the application will need to include the reason for not responding to the request for review or the intention to suspend. The beneficiaries will also need to complete an administrative process that determines how they managed financially during the suspension.
The application for restoration must be supported by a letter from Sassa giving the reason for decision suspension or the lapsing of the grant.
