The South African Social Security Agency said 60% of the grant recipients are young people.
24 October 2020: Eastern Cape resident Esihle Xelo, who hails from Mqanduli, sits on Durham Street outside the Mthatha Post Office waiting for the Covid-19 social relief of distress grant. She travels more than 40km each month to collect the R350. Picture: Bonile Bam / New Frame
CAPE TOWN – Around 7.5 million people receive the R350 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant each month.
But more than 13 million people applied for the grant in January alone – mostly from KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and Limpopo.
The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) revealed this in Parliament on Wednesday.
According to the agency, it is mostly young people who receive the grant that was introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic to assist those who could no longer make a living due to its impact.
In providing a breakdown of the SRD grant recipients, Sassa revealed that the majority of those receiving the R350 grant are women.
At least 60% of recipients are between the ages of 18 and 35 years – and at least 45% of them have a grade 12 certificate.
READ: Social grants on track to be paid on time in January – Sassa
Since April, the Department of Social Development has approved between five million and 7.8 million recipients each month.
Around 15,000 asylum seekers also receive the SRD grant.
But the director of appeals for Social Development, John Mokoele, said thousands of appeals were being received each month, from those whose applications are rejected.
“There are still about one million appeals that we are now going to consider that relate to June, which we skipped as a result of the challenges that were there at the beginning when this process was started regarding adjudication.”
Mokoele said the tribunal hopes to clear the appeals backlog for September and October by the end of March.
READ: Govt doesn’t have enough money to increase R350 SRD grant – Ramaphosa
