President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant will be improved. Ramaphosa also said the grant will be extended.
The president made this revelation in the 2024 State of The National (SONA) address on Thursday evening
The SRD R350 Sassa Grant
The SRD Grant, commonly referred to as the R350 Sassa grant due to its monetary value, is paid to approximately nine million people every month. It's important to note that this is the only grant directly intended to assist unemployed adults living in South Africa.
In the midst of the pandemic we introduced the SRD Grant which currently reaches some 9 million unemployed people every month.
The SRD Grant was introduced in 2020 to assist unemployed people who has little to no prospects of finding employment due to lockdowns. While it was initially intended to support people for a period of three months, the grants implementation has been extended on several occasions.
The latest official extension of the SRD grant was 2 November 2023 when Finance Minister, Enoch Godongwana announced the extension of the R350 grant which was previously set to end in March of 2024. The most recent extension means that beneficiaries can collect their R350 grant until March of 2025.
We have seen the benefits of this grant and extend it and improve it as the next step towards income support for the unemployed.
Ramaphosa praise the impact of the grant arguing that it does not only provide people with what they need to survive but also serves as an investment in their future. The president further disputed that grants and social support established a society dependent on government support.
These grants and subsidies do much more than give people what they need to live, they are an investment in the future. Many people tend to dismiss this and say we are establishing a dependent society, we are investing in our people and investing in their future as well.
Here’s The Full Timeline Of The SRD/R350 Grant
Sassa Status Check Online
Because of the nature of the Sassa R350 grant it is necessary to check on the grant status each month. The payment status will change each month depending on whether the grant beneficiary has received any payments into their bank account for the month - and how much they were for. The official Sassa policy is that you can receive R1800 per month into your bank account before triggering the Sassa reconsideration status and your Sassa grant will be stopped for the month.
Sassa Grant Application
If you want to apply for the SRD R350 grant, or any of the other Sassa grants, you should go to the official Sassa website at www.sassa.gov.za. Make sure that you are using the Sassa official website and not on a fake website. Sassa have confirmed that they only use gov.za websites.
Other Sassa grants include the Disability Grant, Child Support Grant, the Old Age Grant, among others. If you need to contact Sassa officials you can use the Sassa toll free number to contact Sassa directly, or you can use the official Sassa website.
