Question NW1495 to the Minister of Social Development
17 September 2020 - NW1495
Masango, Ms B to ask the Minister of Social Development
What steps will the SA Social Security Agency take to (a) proceed to back pay or catch up with the R350 grant payments that did not occur for the month of May and (b) ensure that payments are made to all approved applicants for the promised six months which ends in October 2020?
Reply:
a) SASSA is currently finalising all payments for applications approved for May 2020. Of the 4 424 720applications approved for payment in May, a total of 3 429 810 had been paid by 8 July 2020. The delay in paying the remainder was as a result of approximately 1 million additional applications being approved, after SASSA reconsidered all previously declined applications against the refreshed database received from UIF. These clients received new SMS messages requesting them to provide their banking details. SASSA will pay them as soon as wereceive theapplicant’s bank details, and National Treasury completes their accounts verification.
SASSA will request Post Bank to open accounts for those clients who have not provided their banking preferences after a period of 5 days from the date messages are sent to them.
b) Validations for the 938 554 applications received in June, as well as the 6 534 754 applications received in May will commence as from 15 July. Every application will be re-validated on a monthly basis to confirm that the applicant still qualifies to receive the grant, as circumstances could have changed in the interim. The payments for all those approved will be extracted and disbursed before end July. The July payments will then follow the same process and be disbursed by mid-August, with August payments being disbursed by end August. The payments will then be current, with payments for September and October being made in the month, for the month.