While the current cycle of the Sassa Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant continues, the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) has come under public scrutiny over how it handled and processed the previous cycle of the R350 grant.
A disallowance of around R11 million was recorded under miscellaneous as a result of grant recipients who might have unjustly benefited from the R350 grant. This was confirmed by a statement issued by the Parliamentary Monitoring Committee (PMC) on Tuesday.
The committee made its query to the Minister of Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu on the basis that the estimated amount of misused SRD funds surfaced on the Auditor General’s report for the 2020-2021 financial year.
The Minister stated that despite the authenticity of the above-mentioned estimated missing funds, the Department of Social Development (DSD) and Sassa had no record of R350 grant debtors and the matter will be investigated further.
Furthermore, she emphasised that this is only an estimate and that the precise amount won't be known until the investigation is concluded. Once a definitive overpayment has been verified or established, the debt management procedure will be resumed
Zulu also reminded R350 grant applicants that they will not receive the grant if they fail to meet Sassa’s specified eligibility criteria upon submitting their grant application.
