Department of Social Development appeals court judgment on Sassa SRD grant

The Department of Social Development (DSD) has appealed a court judgment that declared several regulations governing the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant unconstitutional and invalid.

This was revealed during a virtual portfolio committee meeting where department officials briefed members of parliament on their response to the Gauteng High Court ruling.

Sassa SRD grant court challenge

Advocate Luyanda Mtshotshisa, representing the department, explained that the Institute for Economic Justice and #PayTheGrants took the department to court to challenge provisions in the SRD grant regulations.

“The applicants challenged the constitutional validity of specific provisions in our regulations, seeking to declare them unconstitutional and invalid,” Mtshotshisa told the committee.

The Covid-19 SRD grant was initially implemented from March 2020 to April 2022 under the Disaster Management Act to respond to the humanitarian crisis caused by the pandemic.

After the state of disaster was lifted, the department developed new regulations within the Social Assistance Act, which came into effect on 22 April 2022.

ALSO READ: Court rules Sassa’s regulations limiting access to SRD grant unconstitutional and invalid

The applicants raised several concerns about the regulations, including:

• The limitation of applications to electronic platforms only
• The definition of income being overly inclusive
• Conflicts between various methods of verifying insufficient means
• Bank verification issues that often resulted in errors
• The prohibition of bringing new evidence during the appeal stage
• The value of the grant remaining at R350 (now R370) since its inception
• The means test threshold being based on the 2022 poverty line without adjustments
• The conditional nature of payments based on available funds

Sassa told to address SRD grant payment delays

The court ruled in favour of the applicants on all points, declaring that the SRD grant should be treated as permanent since it was promulgated under the Social Assistance Act.

“The monthly amount of the cSRD at R70 per person is way below the food poverty line and has not been increased annually like other grants.

“Therefore, it does not meet progressive realisation as envisaged in section 27 of the constitution,” the court judgment read, according to Mtshotshisa.

The court further ruled that Sassa must investigate the cause of widespread delays in payments to successful SRD applicants. It gave the agency four months to address this.

Mtshotshisa, however, said the department disagrees with this interpretation.

“The court may have erred in equating this particular grant with other grants because this one is just a social relief of distress, which is temporary. It cannot even be a case of being increased annually because it could have existed for six months or three months or two months and can be stopped any time in terms of its nature and its origin.”

The department, together with the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) and National Treasury, has decided to appeal the judgment in its entirety.

“We have already lodged papers to that effect on February 13. We submitted the leave to appeal and National Treasury has also done the same as respondent in this particular matter,” Mtshotshisa informed the committee.

ALSO READ: Ramaphosa hints again at expanding SRD grant – and will Treasury go ‘BIG’ this time?

Implementation challenges

The department said that implementing some of the court’s directives would pose challenges.

For instance, it said the requirement to make SRD applications available at Sassa offices would put overwhelming pressure on the system.

“Taking into account the number of applicants that will register in a given month — between 17 and 18 million applications every month — if all those or a fraction of those would walk into Sassa offices, which are already inundated with applicants relating to the child support grant and other grants, it would be a human resource nightmare for Sassa,” Mtshotshisa explained.

Another point raised by the department was that the current regulations are set to expire on 31 March 2025, just weeks after the judgment was delivered.

“It is a little bit problematic for the minister to come up with a plan within four months to address these particular issues for a piece of regulation that may come to an end or that may expire on 31 March 2025,” said Mtshotshisa.

The department noted that new regulations will be implemented from 1 April 2025, if Cabinet approves an extension of the grant.

ALSO READ: Fake websites and security weaknesses blamed for fraudulent SRD grants

Social development committee response

After the presentation, committee members sought clarification on engagement with civil society organisations.

“Are we inviting that group of people that is writing to us emails about this case that is in court for clarifications or whatever?” EFF MP Paulnita Marais asked.

The committee chairperson Bridget Masango responded that it would not be appropriate to engage with them on matters currently before the courts.

“Because the matter is sub judice, indeed it would not be prudent to ventilate on such issues before the matter is finalised by the court itself,” Mtshotshisa advised.

The department is awaiting the court’s decision on their leave to appeal application, which would suspend the current ruling against the regulations until the appeal is heard.

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