Cape Town - Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu has apologised to the Social Relief of Distress grant (SRD) applicants and beneficiaries for the ongoing challenges experienced in applying for the grant.
Zulu provided an update on Monday on the disbursement of the R350 SRD grant, as well as the plans the department had to ensure that the country was aware of the available services it offered.
Zulu attributed the challenges to the end of the provisions of the national state of disaster under the Disaster Management Act and the switch over to the regulations of the Social Assistance Act.
The department in August published the amended regulations that simplified some complexities arising from the qualifying criteria, including an increase to the income threshold for qualifying for the grant.
Last month, social movement Pay The Grants said it was alarmed that six months into the new SRD grant iteration, millions of potential claimants were still unable to get their applications approved or get their money as promised.
The pending applications, rejection of applications due to “Alternative Source of Income” and UIF, as well as the use of bank verification and the use of databases such as UIF, Sars, and NSFAS, were flagged as some of the challenges which applicants continued to experience from accessing the grant.
Zulu said, regarding payments, the department still had challenges with beneficiaries who uploaded incorrect bank details. She urged those approved applicants who were not yet paid to check the status of bank verification and, if needed, correct their banking details.
Zulu said, currently, the Department is disbursing the SDR grant to nearly 7.5 million people monthly. She said the significant challenge the Department continued to experience was the low uptake of the benefit by less than 50% of the budgeted amount.
“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,” she said.
Activist Israel Nkuna said Zulu’s admission that less than 50% of the people who applied for the SRD grant in June received was a clear indication that the system was broken.
“It has been broken from the start, and nothing has been done in all this time to fix it. But the way to fix it is simple – get rid of the threshold. It spits out faults that result in human suffering,” he said.