As the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) prepares to roll out the special Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant, new directives have been gazetted that will see the return of 30% of the agency's workforce.
Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu made this announcement on Monday during a briefing in Pretoria where she detailed the plans for grant beneficiaries in line with the Level 4 lockdown.
The 30% Sassa workforce will return to work on Monday and will work on a rotational basis to continue to render social services to citizens. Zulu explained that limited services would be provided at local Sassa offices.
On Mondays and Tuesdays, Sassa offices will be receiving applications from the elderly. Priority will be given to citizens who turned 60 just before or during the lockdown and were unable to complete their applications before services were stopped.
Wednesdays and Thursdays will be new applications for child support and foster child grants.
"Again, priority will be given to caregivers with new babies, instances where the caregiver has to change or where circumstances have resulted in caregivers having no income to support their children," Zulu said.
Contactless application system
In implementing the special R350 grant, Zulu said they would remain vigilant and not tolerate any form of fraud and corruption.
WhatsApp will be used as a new contactless application system for the grant, and the system would be live from Monday.
"We have thus built in strong cyber security and strong monitoring mechanisms in this regard. All instances of suspected fraud or corruption will be investigated thoroughly with appropriate action taken where such conduct is found."
The special grant, which will run from May to October, also has very specific criteria.
To qualify for the Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress grant, you must be:
- A South African citizen, permanent resident or a refugee registered with home affairs;
- Currently reside within the borders of South Africa;
- Above the age of 18;
- Unemployed;
- Not receiving any income;
- Not receiving any social grant;
- Not receiving any unemployment insurance benefit and does not qualify to receive unemployment insurance benefits;
- Not receiving a stipend from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme; and
- Not resident in a government-funded or subsidised institution.
The information provided will be vetted against existing government data bases to ensure that beneficiaries are not receiving grants elsewhere.
As of 30 April, Sassa received more than 80 000 applications for the grant, of which 57 763 were eligible.
The minister added that R407 million has been budgeted for the SRD programme, which might not be enough as the pandemic was pushing many families into destitution.
Food parcels
Zulu said to date 525 029 food parcels had been distributed across the country, which included deliveries by NPOs.
The minister also cleared up confusion, saying that NPOs and NGOs are allowed to distribute food parcels, but noted the challenges with long queues for food distributed by these organisations.
"These challenges were experienced when private sector and NPO's in the main distribute food parcels in an uncoordinated manner wherein the local municipality, provinces and law enforcement agencies are sometimes not informed and not part of these distributions.
"This uncoordinated food distribution creates duplication, partisan and corruption challenges. Whilst proper coordination structures and mechanisms at national and in provinces exists, we acknowledge it is not enough."
Zulu said directives would be developed to address these challenges.