‘He's celebrating government failure’: Mashaba slams Ramaphosa for praising R350 grant recipient increase

ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba has criticised President Cyril Ramaphosa for celebrating the increasing number of social relief of distress (SRD) grant recipients. 

The R350 SRD grant was introduced in 2020 to assist those who lost economic opportunities and were adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Earlier this year, Ramaphosa extended the grant until March 2023. 

After the state of national disaster came to an end, the grant was shifted from the Disaster Management Act to the Social Assistance Act. 

“More than 11-million South Africans are social grant recipients, and it has been demonstrated that without these interventions poverty and inequality in SA would be much higher,” said Ramaphosa. 

Reacting to his statement, Mashaba said the increasing number of social grant recipients was not worth celebrating. 

“The president of the Republic of SA celebrating government failure. Eleven million South Africans on social grants is a failure of unimaginable proportion,” Mashaba said. 

Many agreed with Mashaba, saying Ramaphosa was “celebrating poverty and inequality”. 

12-million applications for August

The SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) said it received just under 12-million applications at the beginning of August after the grant means test threshold was increased to R624.

The agency said it experienced slight delays and challenges with assessments for July owing to previous regulations requiring people to reconfirm their grants every three months. 

“Consequently, few people reconfirmed their grants, but since the new regulations have been published, the July assessments will soon be concluded,” said Sassa. 

Social development minister Lindiwe Zulu said Sassa is dealing with payment challenges as some applicants have not submitted bank details.

“We encourage all applicants to provide us with their correct bank details so we can timeously facilitate their grant payments,” said Zulu.

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