By Hajira Khota
01:10:2021

Since the latest round of Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress grants began in August, the South African Social Security Agency says it has received more than 14 million applications.

Approximately 8.3 million candidates have been approved to date, with more than 5.6 million receiving payments by September 2021. Despite the enormous volume of applications, SASSA said it was able to accelerate payments to confirmed applicants.

Unemployed carers who have ID books and have been granted for the Covid-19 SRD program will continue to receive funds via their gold SASSA cards.

While the majority of beneficiaries received their R350 at the Post Office, about 1.5 million people elected to be paid at ATMs using a cardless payment system.

This category has not yet been paid since SASSA had to go through a procurement process with the banks to use this payment mechanism, and National Treasury is now examining this request says SASSA’s Nandi Mosia who spoke to Radio Islam International.

“Once we get the approval, recipients will be able to collect their R350 payment from their nearest Pick n Pay or Boxer stores”.

According to the statement, SASSA and SAPO collaborated to avoid overcrowding at post offices during payment, reduce the danger of Covid-19 infection, and maintain social distancing. For payment collection on a certain day, the last three digits of approved beneficiaries’ identity numbers will be used.

SASSA advised candidates to avoid going to the post office only to see if the grant was still available.

Grant payments are made by direct deposits into approved beneficiaries’ bank accounts via mobile money transfers and the SA Post Office,” SASSA said in a statement.

The R350 grant for people who are unemployed, the majority of whom lost their jobs when the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, will close at the end of March 2022.

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