The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) said that a ‘Pending’ application status means that their application has not been approved yet. The agency is still in the process of scanning the applicant’s details so that they can be verified.
Sassa recommends that applicants keep an eye on their Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant status for any updates. Once the application undergoes the verification process, the agency validates the applicant’s name, surname and ID number with the Department of Home Affairs.
To ensure that applicants are not recipients of other grants or sources of income, their ID numbers are matched against various databases such as Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), South African Revenue Services (SARS), and National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).
Thereafter the applicant’s ID number and phone number is scanned through a Fraud Risk Scoring process. If their application is approved then they will receive their payment through the Post Office, bank or Cash Send.
Even though the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) continues to process payments of the current cycle of the R350 grants, many applicants still have a ‘Pending’ application status. According to Sassa, these applicants are experiencing this delay because the agency has been trying to keep up with the influx of current applications.
Sassa is aware of the backlog of applications from May and said that they are working towards resolving the matter through a project they are working on. In order to fix this issue, applicants may have received their July payments before their May payments.
The agency hopes to provide its beneficiaries with their May payments in August. Although beneficiaries may be receiving their May payments in August, they should be aware that they will not receive double or lump sum payments, because Sassa assesses every month individually.
In order to clear the backlogs, Sassa may need further information from applicants to verify the information provided when they applied.
