THE South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) successfully started paying out the first batch of applicants for the Covid-19 social relief of distress grant of R350 on Wednesday, 25 August.
In a statement, Sassa said by 18 August, it had already received 8 931 375 applications from all nine provinces, 41% of whom were men and 59% women.
Applications for the grant opened on 6 August, and was set to benefit unemployed citizens, most of whom lost their jobs when Covid-19 struck last year.
“Payments of the grant are channelled through direct deposits into approved beneficiaries’ bank accounts, mobile money transfers through cellphones and the post office. The payment process starts on Wednesday, but will be done over the coming days. Not everyone should expect to be paid today,” the statement read.
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In a bid to avoid overcrowding at post offices, a joint strategy was put in place by Sassa and SAPO.
“The last three digits of the approved beneficiaries’ identity numbers will be used for payment collection on a specific day of the week. This will help minimise the spread of Covid-19 infections and allow for social distancing on pay days.
“Most importantly, if a person has not received an SMS from Sassa notifying them that the grant is available for collection, it means it is not yet available. In other words, every approved applicant must first wait for the SMS confirming the availability of the grant before going to the post office,” said Sassa.
The agency said that the post office will not pay the R350 grant during public holidays, weekends and when normal monthly social grants payments took place.
