Question NW2360 to the Minister of Social Development

Reply:

1. The social relief of distress is an on-going, legislated programme which is implemented every year in every province in response to identified needs. This programme provides material assistance to citizens who experience a crisis, which is beyond their ability to deal with within their own resources. The assistance is provided for a temporary period only. This period may vary from one to three months, which may be extended to six months, under certain circumstances.

SASSA manages the social relief of distress programme in line with the provisions as legislated in the Social Assistance Act, 2004 (as amended). The legislation empowers SASSA to provide social relief of distress to South African citizens, permanent residents and refugees, where they meet certain criteria. One of the criteria is that social relief of distress may be provided where communities are affected by a disaster, even where that area is not declared a disaster area. This enables SASSA to respond to localized incidents such as floods, fire and other disasters.

The social relief of distress may be issued in the form of food vouchers, food parcels, school uniforms or cash, depending on the reason for the issuing of the social relief of distress, as well as the specific arrangements made in the affected province. Where social relief of distress is provided as a response to disasters, the assistance may take the form of pre-cooked hot meals, meal packs, blankets, dignity packs and/or mattresses. The actual assistance provided will depend on the specific needs of the affected communities. In addition to the immediate humanitarian assistance provided, in instances where the affected community lost all their possessions, for example in the case of fire, the families may be provided with a once off cash amount when they are ready to return to their homes. This is to assist in buying some of the household items which were lost in the disaster. However, SASSA does not provide household items as part of the social relief of distress programme.

Within the social relief of distress programme, there are projects such as zero hunger which targets children with limited nutritional resources, seasonal farm workers to support seasonal farm workers during their lay- off period, school uniforms for children whose families cannot afford to buy the uniforms.

For every citizen assisted with social relief of distress, there is an application process followed, to ensure eligibility for the assistance. For humanitarian assistance provided in response to disasters, SASSA provides the relief off lists provided by the local disaster response team in the municipality.

The tables below reflect the amounts spent on social relief of distress for the financial year 2016/2017 and 2017(April to August)

Social relief of distress expenditure per region for the financial year 2016/17

Region	Budget amount	Amount spent
Eastern Cape	116 000 000	94 447 000
Free State	35 000 000	33 401 000
Gauteng	78 000 000	66 674 000
KwaZulu-Natal	132 000 000	124 247 000
Limpopo	82 000 000	81 213 000
Mpumalanga	48 000 000	47 518 000
Northern Cape	50 000 000	18 477 000
North West	46 000 000	43 906 000
Western Cape	93 000 000	76 309 000
	680 000 000	587 192 000

 

Social relief of distress expenditure per region for the financial year 2017/18

(April to July 2017)

Region	Budget amount	Amount spent
Eastern Cape	96 000 000	9 187 743
Free State	36 000 000	7 504 300
Gauteng	80 000 000	13 321 756
KwaZulu-Natal	100 000 000	14 709 053
Limpopo	84 000 000	16 509 652
Mpumalanga	50 000 000	8 074 750
Northern Cape	25 000 000	6 663 536
North West	45 000 000	2 087 575
Western Cape	84 000 000	7 067 466
Total	600 000 000	85 125 832

No of food parcels issued April 2016 to July 2017

Region	No of food parcels issued 2016/03 to 2017/07
Eastern Cape	103 801
Free State	47,035
Gauteng	51,548
KwaZulu Natal	69,310
Limpopo	74,263
Mpumalanga	39,937
Northern Cape	26,988
North West	9,080
Western Cape	22,246
Total	444,208

2. SASSA manages the social relief of distress programme in line with the provisions as legislated in the Social Assistance Act, 2004 (as amended). The legislation empowers SASSA to provide social relief of distress to South African citizens, permanent residents and refugees, where they meet qualifying criteria.