WITH reference to the article on page two of the Highway Mail edition of Friday, 10 November, and if I may just provide my five cents-worth?
A quick perusal of the SASSA old-age grant information brochure (widely available on the Internet, and a copy of which I have forwarded to your), states that a “means test” is indeed conducted prior to any grant being authorised (it was conducted on my parents when they applied), which includes perusal of the applicant’s bank statements, assets etc in order to ascertain whether or not the applicant actually qualifies for the grant, or is simply attempting to maintain their current comfy lifestyle (with a bit of SASSA assistance).
It also states that the ownership of a property has no effect on the means test, and is merely for records purposes.
Finally, and just to provide a bit of reality and perspective to this elderly couple getting “R12 034 a month”, and with “their financial situation deteriorating” (as well as all those like them who are virtually pleading poverty, despite their current incomes).
My widowed mother is a recipient of the grant of R1600 a month, to go along with her R2400 monthly pension (70 per cent of my late dad’s), a fairly paltry sum further exacerbated by the fact that he was a member of the “Transnet Second Defined Benefit Fund”, which has been looted and mismanaged to such an extent over almost two decades now (most recently by the infamous Guptas, if some press reports are true), that their annual increase has been frozen at just two per cent since the early 2000s.
No investment income at all, no property (she resides in my home), and with help from only my brother and I, when and where we can.
Now with this in mind, I have to ask the question of Mr and Mrs Symmonds (without intimate knowledge of their financial situation in comparison to my mom’s, and all those millions in this country far worse off than her)…what do they or any of those earning what they still do (or receiving even more), know about a deteriorating financial situation and survival, with all due respect to them?
Rowan du Toit
Pinetown
