Whilst the latest SASSA R350 grant payment date has been delayed, Minister Zulu assures beneficiaries that they will be paid soon.
However, it’s very concerning that the SASSA R350 grant payment date delay has affected millions of poor people who depend on their SRD payments to survive.
Furthermore, Zulu has been urged to process the payment of grants for all existing beneficiaries who are still waiting for their SRD grant for June.
She’s also been pressured to clear all SRD grant payments that are still outstanding for April and May.
NB. It was announced in April that all eligible SRD grant recipients have to re-apply and submit a new SASSA R350 application to get paid even if they received the grant previously.
If you haven’t re-applied yet, it could be why you haven’t been paid.
Therefore, if you haven’t been paid it may not be due to the SASSA R350 grant payment date delay, but it could be because you’ve been de-registered.
You can fix this by doing your SASSA SRD Status Check here which will show you whether you’re still a registered beneficiary.
When Will SRD Payments Be Made?
According to SASSA, the outstanding SRD payments will not all be done together, but on a month by month basis.
This means that multiple SRD payments will be processed by month until the backlog is cleared and only then will the normal monthly grant payments resume.
Furthermore, various civil society organisations like the Black Sash and #PayTheGrants have raised concern about the millions of poor who are barely able to survive due to the payment delay as published here.
Regarding the state’s failure to pay the SRD grants for the past two months, President Cyril Ramaphosa said “I have now been given a report that they are going to start paying next week and they will be backdating because our people have been relying on this.”
Therefore, SRD grant payments for the new cycle, from April 2022, will start being paid from mid-June 2022 while SASSA continues clearing outstanding payments from the previous cycle as beneficiaries’ bank details are confirmed.
Why the SASSA R350 Grant Payment Date Delay?
According to Minister Zulu there are many processes that have to effected and complied with before social grant payments are able to be made.
Some of the processes she was referring to included the processing and verifying the income and identity of grant applicants to determine whether they are eligible for the grant.
The above process would apply to new as well as previous beneficiaries who had to re-apply despite previously receiving their grant payments.
Notwithstanding the above, applicants who have been approved for the grant have been waiting for three months for their grants to be paid to them.
According to the Minister of Social Development (Lindiwe Zulu), she apportions the blame for the SASSA R350 Grant Payment Date Delay to Treasury and the banks which are the cause of the delay.
Furthermore, the change in the NSOD (National State OF Disaster) and Covid-19 regulations necessitated changes to the SASSA agreements with banks which compounded the administrative delay.
Zulu also said that, despite it adding to the delaying the of SASSA R350 grant payment date, it was important that the processes and systems be followed correctly to ensure that the grants are paid to the correct recipient.
Hopefully, this will put an end to bogus registrations for the R350 SRD payments which causes millions of Rand lost to corruption seen in these SASSA statistics.
Last Word On the SASSA R350 Grant Payment Date Delays
Lastly, regarding the outstanding SASSA R350 grant payments, Zulu said the following.
“We are going to be paying back from the time that people applied, and when they applied they were approved so the payments that will be done will be backdated”
Whilst beneficiaries who are still waiting for their previous months’ money and struggling to survive, at least this should provide some assurance that they will eventually receive all the R350 payments still due to them.