Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu has urged all  South Africans who qualify for the Social Relief of Distress grant to re-apply for the second round of the grant even if they qualified and received grants the first time. Zulu has also urged all those who haven’t collected their grants to collect it before the end of the month. More than half a million grants have not yet been collected from Post Office branches.

 

The eligibility criteria for the COVID-19 SRD grant, will be as follows:

A Social Relief of Distress Grant of R350 per month as indicated in the Directions is payable for the period indicated therein to a person who is —

There will be no retrospective payments for the months the grant was not in existence – from May to July 2021. The new application will only be effective from August 2021. The applications shall be considered from the month of application and paid up to 31 March 2022 provided the qualifying criteria continue to be met. 

This requirement will be confirmed through the monthly validations of every application. Zulu said it is important to note that there will be no automatic qualification. All applications must satisfy the criteria and will be subjected to the entire validation process.

 SASSA will pay the Special COVID19 SRD Grant into the bank account of the beneficiary. With applicants who are unbanked or do not have bank accounts, SASSA will pay through SAPO/Post Bank; or a Bank Mobile Money Transfers (cash send).
 
The minister also emphasised that it is important for applicants to note that the bank account or the cellular phone number provided for payment must be registered in the name of the approved applicant for the grant to ensure that payment goes to the correct recipients. We also appeal to all applicants to provide information on a bank account through which they can be paid, so that we can reduce the long queues at the post office branches and improve convenience to all our clients.  It is also important for every applicant to provide the correct mobile number through which he/she can be contacted, as all communication with applicants will be through sms notifications.