SASSA's Special Relief of Distress (SRD) grant which sees beneficiaries receiving R350 and has been very popular during the pandemic in helping the vulnerable, is set to come to an end in January 2021.
An amount of R13.5 billion has been disbursed through the special COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant to more than six million eligible beneficiaries.
Minister of Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu, has said that there are a number of unclaimed benefits even though they were approved. 40 584 of total benefits are unclaimed, this Zulu said, is mainly from the mobile payment option.
The majority of applicants who opted for this payment method have failed the cellphone verification process which has raised questions of compliance with SIM card registration requirements. "We have tried to reach out to applicants, with very little success but we will not give up,” Zulu said.
The Department calls on all applicants to pick up their grants which will help them with their basic needs.
Over 3 million applicants were found to have other sources of income. This number included 7482 were found to be receiving social grants while 605 466 were registered for the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and 168 920 were receiving funding from NSFAS.
SASSA seems to always be dealing with fraudulent cases with Zulu commenting, "A major concern is that over 8000 applicants were found to be using the personal particulars of deceased persons. This is not only illegal but criminal".
Thanks to our investment in fraud prevention and detection, we are now able to act speedily to deal with suspicious cases and fight fraud by working with other government entities and law enforcement agencies.
SASSA was created in 2005 to distribute social grants on behalf of the Department of Social Development. This was done to improve the standards of living in the country and are given to people who are vulnerable to poverty and/or in need of support from the government
SASSA distributes the Care Dependency Grant, Child Support Grant, Disability Grant, Foster Child Grant, Old Persons Grant, War Veteran's Grant, Grant-In-Aid and the Social Relief Of Distress Grant.
