The Sassa R350 Grant Also Helps Graduates

The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) recently revealed that it received a total of 13 474 520 applications by the end of January 2023.

The figures were revealed by the Minister of Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu, this week during a meeting of the parliamentary portfolio committee. According to Zulu, every month, between 7.4 million and 7.8 million applications are approved.

“As far as payments are concerned, about 95% of approved applicants were paid for the early months. This coverage dropped to about 90% in August 2022. We experienced a further drop to 85% in more recent months,” she said.

The majority of applicants for the SRD grant, according to the department, were young individuals between the ages of 18 and 35.

According to the report, 921,154 applicants had no formal education, 1,063,718 had only completed elementary school, 5,296,937 had completed grade 10, and 5,476,511 had completed grade 12. Out of the 13 million applications received, a total of 716,200 tertiary graduates submitted grant applications.

The number of SRD R350 grant applicants has also become a cause for concern since unemployment and not having any alternative source of income form part of the grant’s eligibility requirements.

This, according to experts, reflects the country’s worsening youth unemployment that has been exacerbated by the Covid–19 pandemic, which was the immediate reason for the introduction of the SRD Grant.

“This means that there is a bottleneck somewhere in the market where people are not getting employed and they need some sort of relief to survive the day-to-day burdens of life”

In addition to this, the overall total of applicants for the Sassa SRD Grant from all nine provinces shows that 56% of them are female applicants, while male applicants make up 44% of the total.

The number of people trying to check on their Sassa status each week shows just how important the Sassa SRD Grant and the other Sassa grants have become to the South African public. 

Meanwhile, during his annual Budget Speech, Finance Minister, Enoch Godongwana revealed that R36 billion will be allocated to the extension of the SRD grant throughout 2023/24 financial year.

UPDATE: The good news is that the R350 Grant has been increased by R20 per month and should now more correctly be referred to as the R370 grant. 

Careers Portal - Skills Portal - Bursaries Portal - Jobs Portal - Jobs Portal - Skills Universe - TheCareersPortal-International