Sassa pays the first batch of R350 grant

Applications for this grant opened on August 6 and are set to benefit unemployed citizens, most of whom lost their jobs when Covid-19 struck.

By August 18, SASSA had received 8 931 375 applications from all nine provinces, 41% of whom were from males and 59% being female applicants.

Payments of this grant are channelled through direct deposits into approved beneficiaries’ bank accounts, mobile money transfers through cellphones and through the South African Post Office (Sapo).

The payment process for all those approved started on August 25 but will be done over the coming days.
To avoid over-crowding at post offices during payment of approved recipients, a joint strategy was put in place by Sassa and Sapo.

The last three digits of approved beneficiaries’ identity numbers will be used for payment collection on a specific day of the week.

This will help minimise the spread of Covid-19 infections and allow for social distancing on paydays.

Most importantly, if a person has not received an SMS from Sassa notifying them the grant is available for collection, it means the grant is not available yet. In other words, every approved applicant must wait for an SMS confirming the grant is available before approaching the post office.

Applicants are advised to avoid going to the post office to just check if by any chance the grant is available. The grant will not be available if it is not the day of the week when Sapo uses the last three digits of your ID number to pay.

The function for all applicants to start checking their status on the system will be available later this week. This function has not been available because Sassa has kept the channels open to cope with the high number of applications being received.

Sapo will not pay the R350 grant during public holidays, weekends and when normal monthly social grants payments take place. Remember to only visit the post office to collect your grant if you have received a payment notification SMS.