Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni, gave some insight into the R350 grant which is yet to be reintroduced. It was said that no payments will be made for May to now.
This does not however mean that payments weren't made, just that the grant was not active during those months and that there are no May, June and July payments. Should you have received funds from the grant during these months, they were for previous months.
Deputy Director General of Public Finance, Dr Mampho Modise, said:
The R350 is not an extension of the previous grant that was introduced and terminated in May. Rather, it’s a reintroduction of the grant and it will commence right now rather than a continuation of what we’ve done in the past. This is a starting point rather than backpaying for the months that the grant was not in existence.
During his briefing on Wednesday, it was made clear that the reinstatement of the grant will not be continuing from the previous rounds of it. Meaning, this is basically a new grant with SASSA starting from scratch with applications.
It's therefore important to note that should you have previously applied for the R350 grant and you want to receive it after the recent announcement, you're going to have to re-apply. Applications are yet to open.
Once applications open for the grant, they will be open until March 2022.
Mboweni continued to say that they are dealing with the current situation and cannot say if government will be able to maintain the grant of beyond the March 2022 deadline.
The previous rollout of the Special Relief of Distress (SRD) grant ended in April 2020 with the starting date of the new round yet to be announced.
When the R350 grant commences again, beneficiaries can expect to receive payments for the months going forward instead of previous months.
The reinstatement of the grant will now allow more people to qualify. This includes unemployed caregivers who currently receive a Child Support Grant.
Government is pushing out a further R1.3 billion to cover the reinstatement of the SRD grant.
