THE South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) started processing the double payments for outstanding June and July accounts for the R350 special relief grant last week.
According to a SASSA statement, this was done in order to avoid a situation where beneficiaries of the COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress grant had to make two trips to the post office and also to eradicate the backlog of payments.
“SASSA also reconsidered applications made in May against updated databases received, which resulted in an additional approximately one million applicants being approved for the grant,” SASSA said.
SASSA added that this would drastically reduce the number of potential appeals and would also cushion the affected beneficiaries against the current impact of the lockdown.
“Payments for June and July have started with transfers for those who have bank accounts. Payments for those who receive their money through the post office will be done progressively throughout the month, to try to limit the numbers of people at the post offices.”
Beneficiaries are reminded to only visit the post office once they have received an SMS stating that their money is ready for collection.
