SRD R370 grant beneficiaries approved in October still waiting for payment

SASSA says delays are due to additional fraud checks

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Illustration: Lisa Nelson

  • Some Social Relief of Distress grant beneficiaries approved in October are still waiting for their payment.
  • The delay SASSA says is because of additional fraud checks.
  • Many people who receive the grant need it urgently for basic needs.

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 SASSAā€™s hotline. ā€œThey said theyā€™re investigating people committing fraud and blocking a few accounts so people can complete verifications. But Iā€™ve already done my verification months ago,ā€ she said.

Mtembu lives with her mother, uncle, grandmother and three children. Their household relies on social grants.

ā€œSASSA keeps telling me to be patient. But itā€™s a new month and I still havenā€™t been paid,ā€ 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 ā€“ aged 18, 10, and four months. Two of her children receive the Child Support grant. She uses the R370 grant primarily to buy groceries.

ā€œEarlier this year, my grant was stopped because I needed to complete the verification. After that was done, I got paid again with no problem,ā€ she explained.

Both Mtembu and Swartz say when they checked their profile online it said ā€œapprovedā€, but the pay date, which initially was reflected as 26 October, had come and gone.

ā€œIt still says ā€˜approvedā€™ for October with no date. I donā€™t understand,ā€ 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. ā€œWeā€™ve done identity verification for some of these affected beneficiaries and still donā€™t know why their dates were removed. Itā€™s been a daily struggle to get pay dates reinstated but with no luck, and just empty promises from SASSA. I donā€™t even know what to tell beneficiaries anymore,ā€ she said.

SASSA spokesperson Paseka Letsatsi said additional verification checks are being conducted ā€œgiven the current climate with high prevalence of fraud and online crimeā€.

He said the review process sometimes results in beneficiaries ā€œbeing removed from the existing payment run for SASSAā€.

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. ā€œThe fraud was not their [SRD beneficiaries] fault, but they are now being punished,ā€ she said.

TOPICS:  Social Grants

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Letters

Dear Editor

I personally think identity verification is also a way of committing fraud. SASSA should have done this in the first place, not now. Identity verification was supposed to start next year in March if it was going to be implemented, not ASAP. Now we are being punished because many of us are no longer receiving the grant. Identity verification must be removed because some of us donā€™t even have smartphones to verify. Please cut us some slack.

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