The Social Security Agency of South Africa (Sassa) says close to 300 000 people would be paid their R 350 social relief grant by the end of this month.
This is money government made available to unemployed people for a six-month period as relief during the coronavirus pandemic.
The agency says it received just under 5 million applications and this figure includes duplications, incomplete and invalid applications.
Sassa CEO, Busisiwe Memela-Khambula says now their system is able to process 1 million applications a day.
She says, “The essential work for Sassa is actually making sure that people get paid, that is why we had to make sure that in terms of this particular applications process we’ve got other channels other than physical channels.”
75 000 COVID-19 social relief grant applications
On Tuesday, Sassa said it had processed around 75 000 applications for the R350 social relief grant meant for millions of unemployed South Africans during the COVID-19 lockdown, but only half of that number have qualified to get the grant.
Sassa Spokesperson Paseka Letsatsi says, “On the 15th (May) we paid about 10 people and those 10 people who were paid it was just to test if the system is working. But there is a category of people of about 75 000 which made applications as well.”
“Out of that 75 000, half of it, unfortunately, we disqualified because they are getting one kind of a grant or the other because some of them are getting social grants, some are getting the UIF or some of them are on National Student Finance Aid Scheme (NSFAS),”explains Letsatsi.
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