Rek Your Cheque: R350 relief grant now expired

The R350 Social Relief from Distress grant (SRD grant) was extended last year by the Department of Social Development to run from 1 November 2020 until the end of January 2021.

According to Sassa, no new applications for the SRD grant would be considered after 31 January, but this doesn’t mean the payments will stop for recipients who are still owed money by the agency.

The cut-off date for recipients to lodge an appeal regarding Sassa’s decision to decline their SRD grant is 28 February 2021.

This is only for applications lodged during the extension period of the SRD grant from 1 November 2020 to 31 January 2021.

Declined clients can still visit the Sassa website to lodge their Covid-19 SRD grant appeals or contact the call centre on 0800-601-011.

If you don’t appeal, you will not be reconsidered for the grant.

Clients who have already submitted their appeals don’t need to reapply or contact the Sassa offices as they will be sent an outcome via SMS.

Please note that 31 January 2021 is NOT the last day to collect your monies.

The SRD grant “expired” on 31 January 2021.

This means that Sassa will not sanction any new payments, but if you have monies that have been paid out to you by Sassa, but you have just not been able to collect it for some reason, that money will remain available “indefinitely”.

As the Post Office clarified last week, any grants paid out between April 2020 and January 2021 can be collected ‘at any time in the future’.

They said in a Covid-19 R350 relief update: “January 31, 2021, is not the last day you can receive your grant! If there is [SRD] money for you at the Post Office, it will still be available in the future.

“It does not expire, and you do not have to collect it immediately.”

February grant payment dates: Older persons’ grants will be paid from 3 February 2021.

Disability grants will be paid from 4 February 2021.

All other grants will be paid from 5 February 2021.

Sassa clients are reminded that they do not have to withdraw their funds on the day that they are available – once in the account, including the Sassa/SAPO card account, the funds can be accessed anytime during the month.

Expiry of the Sassa/ Post Office cards:

Sassa on Friday 29 January 2021 refuted claims circulating on social media about the expiry of the Sassa/South African Post Office (SAPO) card on 31 March 2021.

Sassa said in a statement this was simply not true.

The Sassa cards will NOT stop working on 31 March 2021.

The cards will have to be replaced, as indicated by a SA Reserve Bank report but there is no set date by which time this must be done.

Information on the card replacement will be made public in due course.

Sassa clients have the right to choose their payment method and there is nothing that forces the clients who are currently being paid through the Post Office to change to bank accounts.

They will still be paid using the current Sassa-SAPO card beyond April 2021.

Rising prices of food:

As the SRD grants come to an end, the costs of food keep rising, and petrol is expected to rise by a massive 82c/ litre next week. I honestly don’t know how people are expected to cope anymore.

The January 2021 Household Affordability Index, which tracked food prices from 44 supermarkets and 30 butcheries between

September and January in Joburg, Durban, Cape Town, Pietermaritzburg and Springbok, shows that basic food items like sugar beans, rice, flour and bread have seen price hikes of between 31% and 68%.

According to the latest data, a food basket for the average South African costs around R4051.20.

Economic Justice and Dignity Group programme director Mervyn Abrahams said: “A basket of 43 basic foods has now breached the level of a national minimum wage and we know that 60% of South Africans earn at that level because the national minimum wage would have been R3321. So, food is much higher.”

Taking the above into account, it is safe to say that even an amount as minimal as R350 matters to people.

Funds matters to people.

It therefore greatly angers me that corrupt government officials and their cronies who abused/stole/defrauded funds meant for the most vulnerable of our society in this difficult time have not been prosecuted and jailed.

R350 may mean little to them, but it means literal survival to so many others.

*Moeshfieka Botha is Head of Research and Consumer Education at National Debt Advisors. For more debt and personal finance information visit www.nationaldebtadvisors.co.za