The cheap and legal delivery of most grants can be achieved by simply using banks and ATMs.
The department of social development is increasing the threshold for poor South Africans to get relief against the negative effect of the Covid-19 pandemic, and will also increase the grant given to caregivers supporting orphaned children.
The threshold to qualify for the R350 social relief of distress grant will be raised to R624 from the current R350. This means that, whereas before, those with income flows valued at R350 or more into their bank account from other sources were not eligible to benefit, the cut-off has been raised to R624.
“We increased the means test threshold from R350 to R624 that is in line with the estimated Food Poverty Line for 2022 … We may have to consider a further adjustment to the threshold to enable more applicants to qualify for the benefit,” Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu said in a statement this week.
According to Statistics SA, 35.1 million adults are living in poverty, which speaks to the number of people who are in need of monthly grants from the government.
Zulu apologised to applicants and beneficiaries of the social relief of distress (SRD) who had struggled to get the money after the end of the provisions of the Covid-19 national state of disaster under the Disaster Management Act, and the switch over to the regulations of the Social Assistance Act that now facilitates implementation of the benefit.
“Whereas the Disaster Management Act enabled us to pay the Covid-19 SRD to 10.5 million beneficiaries within a short space of time, the lifting of the national state of disaster in March 2022 challenged the department to immediately develop new regulations under the Social Assistance Act,” she said.
“These changes necessitated that the provisions of the Public Finance Management Act be brought into effect in so far as the use of allocated budgets is concerned. Consequently, the continued payment of this benefit required that additional qualifying criteria be introduced.”
She said that after the government in August published amended regulations that simplified some complexities arising from the qualifying criteria, these had had the desired effect of increasing the number of applicants received by the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) to more than 12 million.
Zulu said as of now, nearly 7.5 million people were receiving the benefit on a monthly basis, but warned: “As we are approaching the levels of support and coverage that we committed to, namely 10.5 million people, we also need to be cautious not to over-commit government to levels of funding that are beyond the allocated budget.”
Monthly child support grant top-up
The child support grants (CSG) for those taking care of orphaned children will be increased to R720 a child a month, from R480.
Zulu said increasing the amount of the child support grant for orphans was the government’s latest investment towards creating a better life for children living in poverty.
“All caregivers of orphans should know that the child support grant top-up is available at all Sassa offices for them to apply,” the minister said.
“No social worker’s report or court order are needed to access the top-up. This is designed to improve the accessibility of the CSG programme to, as best as possible, meet the basic needs of orphans.”
*October 14 2020: This story has been corrected to reflect that the government is increasing the threshold to qualify for the social relief of distress grant, and not the grant itself. The threshold will rise from R350 to R624, while the grant itself remains at R350.