SASSA News – When SASSA Will Stop r350 Grant
In todays latest SASSA News – Sassa, the South African Social Security Agency, has reminded recipients of the R350 grant that it will continue to be available until March 31, 2023.
Yet the deadline for submissions is March 31st. SASSA has also announced that any recipient with overdue payments will be paid for those months, but only for the time period prior to March 2023.
Through the third iteration of the grant’s implementation, R44 billion will be allotted to provide services to 10,500,000,000 people through the end of March 2023. There were 10.9 billion people who could have benefited from the distribution, but only 8.5 billion actually got something.
Since the Public Financial Management Act (PFMA) requires it to stay within its budgeted allocation, the agency has also tightened up the eligibility restrictions for the R350 award. All candidates were required to reach a mean score of R350 on the test.
To ensure that each applicant had a monthly income of R350 or more, their bank accounts were routinely audited.
In order to carry out these means tests, the Department of Social Development (DSD) had to negotiate with banks, and banks will always choose to protect their customers’ money, making this assessment exceptionally difficult.
In the first three months, substantial challenges arose, delaying grant implementation by two months.
The largest problem is the low number of people who really take use of the money. Tragically, the unspent monies must be returned to the National Treasury, despite the fact that local poverty levels continue to rise.
