Recipients who didn’t receive their R350 grant last year will be paid, says Minister Zulu

Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu has promised that recipients who did not receive their COVID-19 grants between May last year and April this year will be reimbursed during the new period between this month and March next year.

Those eligible for the social relief of distress grants totalling R350 include unemployed South Africans who do not receive any social support from the government and refugees and asylum seekers whose Section 22 permits or visas are valid or were valid on 15 March 2020.

Zulu has assured those who have not yet collected money before the end of this month that the funds will have to be returned to National Treasury.

The minister said there were over 570,000 grants that were approved for the first iteration between May last year and April this year, which remained uncollected.

She said all eligible candidates must re-apply for the new iteration adding that the application process had been made easier and safer.

“We have implemented some systems in place for improvements to enable us to better serve the applicants and speed up the verification payment turnaround time. This is very important. Our new process will now request the applicants to provide their banking details upfront so we can process payment as soon as they meet the criteria.”

Zulu said her department was working with provincial offices to re-build properties that were destroyed during last month’s civil unrest in a bid to improve service delivery.

The social development department said the application process for the R350 social relief of distress grant would officially open on Friday, 6 August 2021.

#Covid19SRDGrant application channels pic.twitter.com/K3c1vGTX3w

— SASSA (@OfficialSASSA) August 4, 2021

She said the measures taken to control the spread of COVID-19 had been detrimental to businesses and livelihoods and that the priority must now be to ensure that there would be necessary support, within the government’s means, to prevent more businesses closing down and more jobs being lost.

“The application channels will be opened on Friday, from 9 am, and we expect the first payments to be made in the last week of August.”

-EWN

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