Tito Mboweni has announced that the R350 grant payment will be in place until January 2021, echoing sentiments shared by Cyril Ramaphosa earlier this month. However, it’s not good news for all SASSA recipients.
R350 grant extension – here’s when it will run until
Mboweni confirmed that R6.8 billion would be ploughed into the SRD scheme, in order to keep the R350 grant in place until the new year. The project has benefited around six million South Africans living in poverty:
“We have expanded social protection during this pandemic, and six million people have got the R350 grant. We are extending this payment until the end of January 2021: This grant is effective in reaching the unemployed. We propose to redirect R6.8 billion towards this relief of distress. Top-ups for other grants will have to come to an end, though.”
Tito Mboweni
No more top-ups for these SASSA recipients
Already existing social grants – including Old Age, Disability, War Veterans, Child Support, Foster Child, and Care Dependency – will stop from next month. The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) on Monday said the grant amounts, as from November, will revert to pre-COVID-19 amounts. The R350 grant is unaffected.
“There is no extension to the top-up,” SASSA said in a brief statement on Monday.
Child Support Grant (CSG) beneficiaries received an extra R300 in May and R500 between June and October, while other grant beneficiaries were topped-up with R250 for six months. The top-up grant was government’s temporary relief against food insecurity and to cushion households severely battered by the pandemic.
The Social Development Department is among government’s key implementers of the social relief and economic support package, to the value of R500 billion, announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in the early stages of the outbreak. The R350 grant proved to be one of the most popular interventions of the pandemic, despite several administrative hitches.
#Mboweni: The Cabinet has decided to extend the Social Relief of Distress grant to the end of January 2021. Because this grant is so effective in reaching the unemployed, we propose to redirect R6.8 billion from the public employment programme allocation. #MTBPS2020 M.M
— Jozi FM (@jozifm) October 28, 2020
Read the original article on The South African
