During March 2020, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared the National State of Disaster due to the current pandemic.
Within that time people were unable to work due to the hard lockdown, which is why a special COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress Grant (SRD) of R350 per month was introduced to offer temporary financial relief to those citizens that were worst affected by the pandemic.
This grant, which was initially set to last 6 months, has now been continually extended much to the hopes of many South African citizens who have continued to struggle post-lockdown. However, it is set to stop being issued from the 31st of March 2024.
If you have applied for the grant and want to track your application, you may do the following:
- Track application status online via srd.sassa.gov.za/sc19/status. Then fill in your ID number and the contact number you used to submit your application.
- Check your Sassa grant application status on WhatsApp by sending 'status' to 082 046 8553.
Every now and again, Sassa conducts internal verifications on certain beneficiaries' accounts. Those who are successful should not experience any change to their status. However, in some cases, beneficiaries are left with a 'referred' status.
This means that during these checks, the beneficiary's ID number was found to be linked to fraudulent or high-risk activity, and their grant was subsequently declined. The matter could then be referred to the Southern African Fraud Prevention Service (SAFPS).
Unfortunately, being declined in this manner does not allow for an appeal. However, if you believe this to be a wrongful result, beneficiaries may lodge further enquiry either to referred@sassa.gov.za, or to grantenquiries@sassa.gov.za, or call Sassa at 080060 10 11.
If you were declined for other reasons outside of being referred, you may appeal by visiting the SRD Appeals page and click on the button that says 'click here to lodge an appeal or check appeal status'.
Be sure to include ID number and the contact number that you used for your application.
