Social Development defends means test for R350 distress grants as deadline looms
The Department of Social Development has defended its decision to introduce a means test for impoverished South Africans applying the R350 social relief of distress grant.
The grant was initially implemented at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 in a bid to throw unemployed South Africans a lifeline.
While it was set to be a 6-month reprieve, the timeframe was later revised.
The grant was extended from April this year to March 2023, even though President Cyril Ramaphosa lifted the national state of disaster for the pandemic.
But the latest extension came with an unwelcome revision in the form of a means test.
Unions and human rights groups hit out at government's changes.
On Thursday, Social Development deputy director-general Brenda Sibeko said the changes would help protect the fiscus.
"Of course, we have changed the means test. I know there has been a lot of unhappiness about this. Originally, we have introduced a zero means test, but we never implemented that zero means test. Then later we said the means test would be at R595 which was the food poverty line - even that we did not implement on every single applicant, we only used it for the people who submitted appeals who had been rejected.
"This time around we are going to be testing every single person, we will be using the banks to check on incomes of everyone and we have reduced the means test to R350.”
It's understood 18 million citizens earn below the poverty line.
Sibeko said government can only afford to support 10.5 million of those.
"We are dealing with a challenge of so much resource versus needs that are unlimited."
Some 7 million applications have been received ahead of the month-end deadline.
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