In today’s Sassa news – The Department of Social Development fell short of its goal of providing Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grants to more than 390,000 South Africans, resulting in a decline in the number of grant recipients. The Social Relief of Distress was introduced by the government to assist citizens financially to enable them to meet the needs of themselves and their families. The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) is responsible for distributing this social grant to beneficiaries on monthly bases.
Sassa planned to reach out and award 390 880 SRD grants at a cost of R391 million on behalf of the Department of Social Development.
However, only 167,802 SRD grants were reportedly awarded at a cost of R191,755,000. This is his 42.93% of the target set.
Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu recently received 7.5 million grants for his R350, but the grant target has not been met and the number of people receiving SRD grants is also declining.
However, SRD grants, along with other social grants, remain the government’s most effective tools in tackling poverty and inequality.
R350 10.9 million beneficiaries benefited from SRD grants, including special Covid-19 SRD grants.
During the period from May 2020 to August 2021, Sassa made payments to ineligible individuals who did not meet the requirements for her SRD grant. This may have influenced the target number of beneficiaries to be awarded the SRD grant.
This is reportedly due to inadequate internal controls designed to perform verification and prevent payments to unauthorized individuals.
Sassa has effective, efficient, and transparent systems for financial and risk management and other relevant internal controls in place. This non-compliance resulted in significant financial loss for DSD.
Accounting Authority challenges PFMA non-compliance, arguing Sassa took reasonable steps to prevent payments to ineligible claimants by using the best data available to the authority prior to payment Did.
The Auditor General of South Africa (AGSA) said Sassa should put in place procedures to ensure that only valid beneficiaries of SRD grants are paid, based on data received from various agencies. said.
Sassa has been directed by AGSA to ensure there is a process to verify beneficiaries before payments are made. They also need to update their systems as regulations change.
