THE South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) will accelerate the pace of paying out Covid-19 social relief of distress grants from Monday, June 1.
According to a statement on behalf of Sassa, a move to level 3 will increase human resource capacity drastically – making payments quicker than before.
Much progress has been made in prepa-ring for the payment of large numbers of the Covid-19 social relief of distress grants.
Just under 5 million applications have been received – including duplications, as well as incomplete and invalid applications.
According to the statement, the mammoth task of ensuring that the correct and deser-ving individuals are paid has started in earnest. This process involved intense negotiations with institutions in the value chain and this accounted for the delays that were encountered.
These delays proved to be worth it, given the number of applicants that could be excluded during the process as they are either in receipt of social grants or UIF – two factors which expressly disqualify applicants from receiving this grant.
These exclusions saved the Fiscus close to R14 million, which could have sky-rocketed to over R81 million by October,” said SASSA CEO Totsie Memela.
No applications for the special Covid-19 relief grant will be taken at Sassa offices. Only electronic applications are accepted. Residents can apply online at srd.sassa.gov.za.
In order to comply with the restrictions on services during lockdown, Sassa local offices have specific dates on which they attend to selected grants:
- On Mondays and Tuesdays local offices strictly attend to applications for old age grants;
- On Wednesdays and Thursdays local offices strictly attend to applications for child support grants and foster child grants;
- Fridays are reserved for admin purposes as well as to deal with referred cases from previous days.
