The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) says it has kept the promise to pay at least 100 000 clients who applied for the Special Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress.
In a statement on Tuesday the Agency said, “By 31 May 2020, 116 867 clients were paid for the Special Covid-19 SRD Grant. In addition, to date, over 3.5 million were checked to confirm if they are either active Sassa grant recipients, are on UIF database or receive a NSFAS stipend.”
The Agency said it had received around 13 million enquiries and applications about the temporary Special Covid-19 SRD Grant as at Monday 25 May 2020.
“About 6.3 million of these were valid complete applications. The rest were either duplicate applications, incomplete, had inconsistent data, or were just pure enquiries,” said Sassa CEO Busisiwe Memela.
Sassa said the progress had been made as follows:
* About 1 236 492 clients were being finalised through verification by SARS to confirm if they have an income.
* Total 666 381 clients had been approved and Sassa was awaiting bank details information.
* Over 1 597 127 had been disapproved since the applicants had other means of income.
Applicants were reminded to respond immediately to the SMS received from Sassa and provide their banking details through the secure link.
“This will enable Sassa to ensure payments are processed without delay to all eligible applicants.”
There is no cut-off date for applications for this special relief grant.
“Anyone who meets the qualifying criteria, should lodge an application without delay,” Sassa said.
Beneficiaries can also check the status of their applications online at https://srd.sassa.gov/za/sc19/status or by adding GovChat Whatsapp on 082 046 8553, open chat, type “Status” and send.
Sassa had also successfully implemented the increase of the child support grant by R300 per child and an additional R500 per caregiver from June to October 2020. All other existing grants were increased by R250 per month from May to October 2020 (except for Grant in Aid).
