Many SASSA beneficiaries have not received their R350 grant payments for March and April, and some earlier months too. SASSA's CEO, Totsie Memela, has given an explanation as to why this is happening.
The simple reason for these R350 grant payment delays is that government is commencing with a new financial year.
The end of a financial year means that there are administrative processes which need to be done before new transactions can be made for the last financial year and before heading into a new one.
This is what has been occupying SASSA.
Memela told IOL:
SASSA would like to apologise for this break in the payments and would like to reassure all deserving applicants for the relief grant who have been affected that payments will be made as soon as the administrative processes have been completed.
This delay was brought about due to SASSA having received news of the R350 grant extension after their administration systems closed at the end of last year January.
After being notified of the extension in February, SASSA then had to reopen these systems and reopened the application channel a few days later.
86 363 new applications were received for February.
Every single one of the more than 10 million applications for this grant are validated on a monthly basis, to ensure that payments are made to applicants who do qualify for the grant.
Memela continued to say that February payments were made at the end of February and early March.
"The applications for March were validated as usual after the payments for February had been completed, but could not be extracted for payment before March 31, 2021," the CEO said.
April marks the last month open for R350 grant applications as applications will close on 30 April. If you've already applied and have been approved, you should then just await payment.
Applicants are encouraged to contact SASSA offices if they have not yet received their social grant payments.
