[Source: THE SOUTH AFRICAN > by Storm Simpson]
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SASSA has finally committed to a firm date for grant disbursement of R350 in June. Beneficiaries were not paid in April or May.
The CEO of the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), Busisiwe Memela-Khambula on Friday, June 17, finally provided clarity in a video statement regarding the disbursement of COVID-19 emergency social assistance (SRD) grants.
GRANT PAYMENTS OF R350 FROM JUNE 22
The SRD grant, better known as the R350 grant, has not been distributed to the millions of beneficiaries in the past two months.
Memela-Khambula’s statement provided clarity and dates for the payments.
The main takeaways are:
Grant payments of R350 for June will be made from June 22, 2022. currently underway.
SASSA has now started addressing payment challenges surrounding the reconsideration applicants. By the end of this week, a million of them will already have received their due.
Let’s be clear, the payment process this week is for anyone who appealed the rejected applications from August to November 2021.
It takes about two business days for payments to appear in the bank accounts. We appeal to customers to provide SASSA with their bank account details so that we can deposit them into their own accounts.
We will also text customers who have been approved for reconsideration without a bank account asking them to upload it.
READ: SASSA says R350 reconsideration payments are now underway
The extension of the grant for a new 12-month period was announced in February 2022. However, before the extension could be implemented, the legislative framework had to be changed in view of the lifting of the national COVID-19 emergency situation.
The legal basis of the grant had to be moved from the Disaster Management Act to the Social Assistance Act of 2004.
This change was published in April 2022 and the application channels opened on April 23, 2022.
READ: SASSA R350 Grant recipients MUST reapply – applications open April 23
In this new iteration, one of the preconditions for the allocations was to address concerns about inclusion and exclusion errors and also ensure we stay within the budget allocation of R44 billion.
READ: Nearly Three Million Recipients Lose Their SASSA R350 Scholarship – Here’s Who’s Affected
To achieve this, we conducted an income test by checking the income in people’s bank accounts. Previously, this was done on a small scale for the objectors. We have now pre-implemented this for all COVID-19 SRD applications.
This required an extensive procurement process with banks, which caused some delay in system startup.
READ: June SASSA R350 Scholarship Payment Delayed Due To Income Test – Payable Mid Month
The final phases of signing contracts with the different banks have been completed and data exchange between SASSA and the banks continues.
This means that payment for the new applications will start next week, i.e. on June 22, 2022.
This goes as follows: In the month of June 2022 we will pay this month’s SRD R350 subsidy. We will start the backlog in July, starting with the April ratings and the outstanding May [payments] will be paid in August.
We expect August to be on track to pay the monthly grants after this period.
