The South African Social Agency (Sassa) confirmed that more than nine million people are currently benefiting from the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant.
While the grant has been an ever-present source of income for vulnerable people since its introduction in 2020, the grant has not been made permanent. This begs the question, when will the R350 Sassa grant end?
The SRD grant serves as the only financial support available to nine million unemployed adults living in the country since it was first introduced to assist people during the pandemic and COVID-19-related lockdowns.
During the 2024 State of Nation Address (SONA), President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the SRD grant would be extended until March 2025.
However, this extension was confirmed a few months earlier by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana in the medium-term budget policy statement in November 2023. Godongwana’s announcement meant that beneficiaries would be able to access the vital support mechanism until March 2025.
Will The SRD Grant Be Extended Again?
In the expanded Budget 2024 review, the National Treasury revealed that the SRD Grant is allocated R33.6 billion in 2024/25 with provisional allocations for 2025/26 and 2026/27.
However, the minister said funding for the grant after 2025 has not yet been finalised. They added that any future extension and improvement of the grant will need to be within the current fiscal framework or funded by a new revenue source.
These improvements will be within the current fiscal framework. We have made the point that it may work, we have to find some revenue source for it.
Godongwana also announced plans to improve the SRD grant. This improvement was an R20 increase in the grant's value. The grant is now R370 per month.
Work is currently underway to improve the SRD by April this year. National Treasury will work with the Department of Social Development to ensure that improvements in this grant are captured in the final regulations.
Whether the grant will end or not depends on revenue and the government's policy for supporting unemployed adults in South Africa. The introduction of the BIG could also signal the end of the SRD’s implementation.
Social Development Minister, Lindiwe Zulu said her department is finalising policy proposals for the introduction of the BIG
It is heartening to see that even the opposition is expressing support for this policy initiative. We welcome your support, but equally rebut your cheap political stunt with the contempt it deserves for trying to claim easy victories by positioning yourselves as champions of this initiative that is firmly rooted in the ANC policy documents.
In 2022, Zulu said the government was close to implementing a BIG. Work began developing these BIG policies in 2021 when a panel of experts on Basic Income Support (BIS) were appointed by the DSD to study the impact of a Basic Income Grant.
The team said that if the South African government gradually introduced a basic income grant carefully, it would not result in major trade-offs with existing social support mechanisms, economic sustainability and the fiscal position of the government.
