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SRD R350 Grant Extended To Beyond 2024 (To March 2025)
Good news for SRD grant beneficiaries as it was announced by the Finance Minister that the SASSA R350 grant has been extended beyond 2024 for another year until March 2025.
Whilst the Finance Minister, Godongwana, says a solution must be found, it’s unlikely that anything will happen until after the elections in 2024 and beyond.
NB: This may affect all SASSA beneficiaries
He went on to say that the the extension of the SRD grant, or the introduction of a new permanent social grant, would have to be supported by significant growth in revenue or a significant reduction in spending.
This will be of little concern to the millions of beneficiaries who depend on the grant and aren’t likely worried about what will happen in years down the road.
More SRD Grant Applicants Will Qualify For the R350
Latest news on SASSA R350 grant 2022 is that more people will qualify to receive the SRD grant.
This is because the minimum income threshold will be increased from the existing amount of R350 to R624 to qualify for the grant.
Whilst the minimum income threshold has been increased to R624, the actual value of the grant itself remains R350 per person per month for the period 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023.
SASSA apologises for the problem in the Post Office (Postbank) system that prevented grant beneficiaries from accessing their November 2022 payments.
It was reported the system to process SASSA payments has been unstable since 3 November, but has now been rectified – this hasn’t affected the SRD grant payments which can still be collected at these SASSA Payment Points.
Furthermore, beneficiaries who incurred costs for declined transactions during the period would be refunded.
Ref: EWN News
This is good news for the millions of poor South Africans who earn more than R350 but less than R624 per month who can now receive an extra R350 in the form of the SASSA SRD grant.
Therefore the millions who are currently living on the breadline of R624 per month will now be able to submit their SASSA R350 grant application to benefit from the social welfare initiative.
For old age grants and child support grant recipients, this is the published SASSA Grant Increase from October 2021 to October 2022.
In spite of the minimum income threshold having been raised, Minister Zulu says it’s concerning that the number of SRD grant beneficiaries is dropping.
Ref: Sowetan 3 Nov 2022
For instance, in June 11.3-million applied and SASSA approved 6.8-million, however when the grant was first rolled out, there were an estimated 10-million beneficiaries.
Minister Zulu went on to say that she did not want a large number of people depending on the grant to be excluded.
She has therefore instructed SASSA to investigate the significant decrease in the number of people receiving the R350 social relief of distress (SRD) grant.
Furthermore, regarding the SASSA payment status check, beneficiaries should note that the date that appears on a status of R350 grant is not a payment date but it’s the date when the grant was captured into the system.
Before going to collect their grant money, recipients must wait to get the SMS from SASSA to say that it is ready for collection.
SASSA R350 Grant applicants approved in October should only expect to receive their money by mid-November.
Furthermore, if you’re not sure whether you’ve been approved, you should do your SASSA Status Check for R350 Payment Dates For 2022 to ensure that your registration was successful with the South African Social Security Agency.
Latest SASSA News: New Requirements For Beneficiaries To Qualify For SASSA R350 Grant
The Social Security Agency recently announced new regulations for beneficiaries to qualify for the SRD grant.
These will include the consideration of an applicant’s educational background in order to exclude applicants such as state officials and employed people from being able to apply and illegally receiving the R350 grant.
Furthermore, the new regulations mean that registered beneficiaries of the R350 SASSA grant cannot refuse, without good reason, to accept employment or educational opportunities.
It therefore goes without saying that should recipients refuse such employment unreasonably, they will not receive future SRD grant payments.
This new rule is hoped to provide convert poor South Africans who are surviving on the SRD grant to be able to earn an income for themselves and not be dependent on the state.
These new SASSA regulations also mean that recipients of the SRD grant will need to confirm every three months whether they are still in need of the R350 grant.
Latest Regulations On the SASSA R350 SRD Grant
Minister Zulu gazetted the new regulations on Tuesday 15th August 2022 to allow for South Africans earning up to, and including, R624 per month to be able to qualify for the R350 SRD grant.
Whilst this will allow millions more poor people to receive the grant, the actual amount of R350 per month will not be increased.
Therefore nothing will change for those already receiving the SASSA R350 grant, however they should still do a SRD status check every month to ensure their registration hasn’t been cancelled.
Unfortunately for the millions who earn a monthly income of just more than the food poverty line, of R624 a month, will still not qualify for the grant.
However this latest news on SASSA R350 grant will bring welcome relief to those poor South Africans struggling to survive with a monthly income under the food poverty line who will now benefit with an extra R350.
Previous Beneficiaries Should Re-Apply For SRD R350 Grant
The SASSA SRD grant was originally implemented at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic to assist the poor.
The qualifying criteria at that time included all applicants whose monthly income didn’t exceed R624 per month with almost 11 million people receiving the grants.
However since the means test was lowered to R350 per month, roughly half of the beneficiaries were then excluded from getting the grant leaving only just over 5 million people qualifying.
Therefore those whose registrations were cancelled should now submit their R350 SRD applications online.
The sooner you submit your application, the sooner you’ll be registered and eligible to start receiving your R350 grant.
If you’re not sure whether you’re registered after submitting your application, you should so your SASSA status check online to see.
Criteria For SASSA R350 Grant To Be Eased Even Further
While talking about the latest news on SASSA R350 grant, Minister Zulu also said that the qualification criteria could be further eased.
This announcement was in response to pressure from pro-poor civil society and advocacy groups.
Part of the easing of the criteria could also included doing away with the onerous condition that required beneficiaries’ to banks to verify income flows into their bank accounts.
More On the Latest News On SASSA R350 Grant 2022
As of 30 June 2022 there were over twenty-thousand SRD grant applicants who are not SA citizens.
This was announced by the Department of Social Development.
The majority of these non-citizens are special permit holders from Lesotho at sixteen-thousand, followed by asylum seekers at just over two-thousand and special permit holders from Zimbabwe and Angola at fifteen-hundred each.
However, there could be more good news on the horizon for SASSA beneficiaries as there are rumours that the R350 grant could be increased to R700.
Even if the SRD grant isn’t increased, at least more people will benefit and the criteria will be eased in other areas such as the cross-checking of all applicants against the banking system, which caused many applicants from being disqualified.
This bank verification process even caused existing beneficiaries to be de-registered.
However, whatever happens, you will be the first to read the latest news on SASSA R350 grant 2022 here.