Sassa has announced its payment dates to SRD grant recipients for the first three months of 2024. Photo: Gallo Images
Managed by the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa), the Department of Social Development‘s R350 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant is in its fourth cycle in 2024, helping more than 8.5 million eligible South Africans, refugees and asylum seekers since May 2020.
In his Medium-Term Budget Speech (MTBPS) at the beginning of November, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana announced that National Treasury had allocated an additional R34 billion to aid the continuation of the programme for another year.
The much-contested grant was supposed to come to an end next year, but the extension pushes that back to March 2025.
IOL reported last year that Deputy President Paul Mashatile said the country’s SRD grant agreed that the R350 grant is not in line with inflation and will be reviewed in 2024.
At the time of Godongwana’s MTBPS, GroundUp reported that — to keep up with inflation — the SRD grant should ideally be increased to R413.
Instead of the fixed payment schedules of Sassa’s permanent grants, the date of the R350 grant payments was not specified up until September this year. This because the department needs to verify recipients’ eligibility on a monthly basis.
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It’s important to note that the Sassa grant payment department does not pay grants on public holidays or weekends, with SRD grants being paid during the last week of the month.
This essentially means that if this time of the month is on a weekend or public holiday, the grant will be paid on the next weekday, as per the payment schedule.
Sassa has encouraged beneficiaries to check their Sassa status on the SRD website during the designated payment week to determine the exact date when their Sassa grant payment will be deposited into their bank accounts.
The agency also reminded recipients that it usually takes two to three working days for the funds to appear in their bank accounts after the payment has been processed.
SRD grant payments are made during the final week of the month after Sassa completed various verification checks. These verification checks seek to ensure only deserving individuals receive SRD grant payments.
The following are some of the requirements that persons must meet to be eligible to receive these grants:
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