The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) continues its phased review of social grant recipients, urging beneficiaries to be honest and transparent during the income verification process.
This comes after multiple pensioners did not receive their July grants after the agency discovered what it called “additional income” in their bank accounts.
Brenton van Vrede, Sassa's executive manager for grants administration said during a press conference on Monday morning that for normal social grants such as the older person’s grant, disability grant, and child support grant the focus is not simply on how much money appears in a bank account. It is rather on what the money represents and how consistently it is received, said van Vrede.
“In a nutshell, what we are encouraging is for people to disclose,” said van Vrede. “It’s not about how much is in the account. It’s about understanding the source of that income, so we can test whether the person qualifies for the full grant amount, a partial amount, or doesn’t qualify at all.”
“Maintenance is considered income in terms of the social assistance regulations, but each case is individually assessed.”
He also emphasised that honesty in the application process including providing three months of bank statements and explaining each source of income, is essential to ensuring people are assessed fairly.
Van Vrede noted that most grant recipients will likely still qualify, even if they are receiving small amounts of financial support from family members.
“The qualifying income threshold for the older person’s grant is quite high over R8 900 per month. So, if someone is receiving R2,000 from their children, it’s unlikely to result in disqualification unless they have additional income, such as from a pension fund or rental income,” he explained.
Sassa CEO Themba Matlou addressed confusion around the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grants, maintenance income, and the process by which reviews are triggered. Matlou emphasised that no beneficiaries have been suspended but confirmed that the agency is actively reviewing around 210,000 beneficiaries out of 19 million, a small fraction after red flags were raised about possible ineligibility due to employment or other income sources.
“We have not experienced a situation where someone has been verified and not been paid. If the person no longer qualifies in terms of the legislation, we will definitely suspend the grant but at this stage, there hasn’t been any suspension,” he said.
Matlou noted that means testing varies depending on the type of grant. For child support grants, it is the primary caregiver’s income that is assessed not the child’s. In contrast, the SRD (Covid-19) grant involves more stringent, automated income checks via bank verification to determine eligibility.
“With SRD, we verify through the banks whether there’s consistent money that comes through,” he explained. “But for normal grants, the means test usually applies to the primary caregiver only.”
To reduce panic and long queues at Sassa offices, Matlou said the agency is in the process of developing a self-review online platform so that grant recipients can review their own information without physically visiting offices. Hotspot offices with high volumes are also being staffed with additional personnel to handle reviews more efficiently.
“We’ve only sent out the first rounds of notifications in June. We’re still within the review timeframe. Once we pass that, and if clients haven’t come forward, then suspension will occur not necessarily because they don’t qualify, but because they failed to do the review,” he explained.
As the process unfolds, the agency promises to publish more accurate data on the number of beneficiaries reviewed, the outcomes of those reviews, and the number of grants continued or cancelled by the end of July.
SowetanLIVE
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.