12 November 2024
Illustration: Lisa Nelson
Nearly three weeks after they were supposed to be paid, a number of Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant beneficiaries who had their applications approved in October, are still waiting for their payments.
Monique Mtembu, from Eldorado Park in Johannesburg said after earlier issues with verifying her identity in January, February and March, she started receiving the grant in April. Although she was approved for her grant in October, it has not been paid.
Mtembu said she contacted SASSA’s hotline. “They said they’re investigating people committing fraud and blocking a few accounts so people can complete verifications. But I’ve already done my verification months ago,” she said.
Mtembu lives with her mother, uncle, grandmother and three children. Their household relies on social grants.
“SASSA keeps telling me to be patient. But it’s a new month and I still haven’t been paid,” she said.
Alvina Swartz, also from Eldorado Park, is unemployed and has been receiving the SRD grant for over a year. She lives with her brother and three children – aged 18, 10, and four months. Two of her children receive the Child Support grant. She uses the R370 grant primarily to buy groceries.
“Earlier this year, my grant was stopped because I needed to complete the verification. After that was done, I got paid again with no problem,” she explained.
Both Mtembu and Swartz say when they checked their profile online it said “approved”, but the pay date, which initially was reflected as 26 October, had come and gone.
“It still says ‘approved’ for October with no date. I don’t understand,” said Swartz.
Neither of them received a new request to verify their identity.
Elizabeth Raiters, deputy director of the #PayTheGrants campaign, expressed frustration over the delays. “We’ve done identity verification for some of these affected beneficiaries and still don’t know why their dates were removed. It’s been a daily struggle to get pay dates reinstated but with no luck, and just empty promises from SASSA. I don’t even know what to tell beneficiaries anymore,” she said.
SASSA spokesperson Paseka Letsatsi said additional verification checks are being conducted “given the current climate with high prevalence of fraud and online crime”.
He said the review process sometimes results in beneficiaries “being removed from the existing payment run for SASSA”.
He said beneficiaries who pass the review process would have their payments scheduled in a subsequent run, though he did not provide a specific timeline.
Raiters called for urgent attention to the issue. “The fraud was not their [SRD beneficiaries] fault, but they are now being punished,” she said.