Social Development Minister, Lindiwe Zulu, announced when applications will open for the Special Relief of Distress grant as well as when payments will begin. Keep reading to find out all the latest details.
It’s been confirmed that applications for the Special Relief of Distress (SRD) grant will open on 6 August at 9am. Beneficiaries can expect the first R350 grant payments to be made in the last week of August.
Payments will be made from August until March 2024
Details were also given on the eligibility criteria for the new round of grants:
- Must be a South African citizen, permanent resident, refugee registered on the home affairs database, holders of special permits or asylum seekers with valid visas
- Currently residing within the borders of South Africa
- Must be between 18 and 60 years old
- Unemployed
- Not receiving other social grant
- Not receiving employment insurance benefit
- Not receiving NSFAS money or other financial aid
- Not receiving other Covid-19 government support
- Not a resident of a government funded or subsidised institution
Caregivers who are not receiving any grant on their own behalf will also be eligible to receive the grant this time around.
Should you have applied for the previous round of the grant, you will need to re-apply.
The Minister of Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu, was briefing media on Covid-19 social relief measures when she said:
According to studies and research that were done and findings for the period between March and June 2024, Covid-19 relief measures were estimated to have reduced the number of households with income below the food poverty line of 20.6% to 18.8% and the reduction of inequality from 0.644% to 0.613%.
Zulu also said that research confirmed that majority of grant recipients use the money to buy food and basic essentials and that this shows that the money Government is giving, goes back into the economy.
All recipients from the previous round of the grant who have not received payments will get their payments during this reintstatement. The reintstatement won’t affect what is owed to them.
With the previous round of R350 grants, SASSA received 10 million applications and 6 million of them were approved. R24 billion was made in payments with a further R15 billion for top ups for all grant types.
