Minister stops R350 grant ghosts!

THE Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant, widely known as the R350 beneficiaries’ payouts, will be terminated effective on the last day of the month in which they died.

Minister of Social Development Lindiwe Zulu said this as she gave updates on the amendments that have been added to the Covid-19 SRD Regulations.

This amendment follows President Cyril Ramaphosa and Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s announcement to increase the SRD grant from R350 to R370, effective on 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025.

The new amendments are an effort by the government to stop the issue of ghost payments.

Zulu said they have introduced the amendment to the death of Covid-19 SRD beneficiaries.

According to Zulu, this amendment will provide for lapsing of the benefit on the last day of the month in which the beneficiary died.

She said another amendment includes introducing Regulations 6A of recovery and Uncollected benefits and Regulations 6C of transitional provision, which will also promote the effective and efficient administration of the provision.

“Regulations 6A empowers the agency to recover irregular payments, suspend and cancel approved but uncollected benefits within prescribed timeframes if the person fails to respond to the agency’s request for personal details.

“Regulation 6C seeks to ensure uninterrupted assessments and payments during the transition between the Regulations published on 29 March 2023 and these amendments,” Zulu said.

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Sassa, in February 2024, noted a story allegedly aired on the SABC news channel, which stated that more than 74 000 dead recipients were wrongly paid by the agency.

According to Sassa, the number of 74 000 dead beneficiaries, as reported, is the number of beneficiaries who were reported to have died in the past three years.

This was revealed by Zulu in a written reply to a Parliamentary question.

This means that of the 18 million clients paid monthly, there is an average of 2 055 clients that died every month in the past three years.

This includes the death reported late to Home Affairs or Sassa by family members, days after payment had been processed.

The agency said its fraud and compliance unit is addressing corruption.

Sassa said it’s working with Home Affairs to ensure that the systems are connected to stop corruption.