UBIC Statement | SASSA misrepresents drivers behind SRD grant application numbers


CORRECTION as at 16:40, 9 October: Please note an earlier version of this statement incorrectly asserted that SASSA had failed to clarify that the application numbers were cumulative. SASSA did make this clarification in a statement on 7 October, and the relevant assertion has been removed from this statement.


The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) recently released September application numbers for the Social Relief of Distress (SRD, R370) grant in response to a request from Ground Up, which showed that the agency assessed 17.2 million applications for the grant in September.

The figures have since been characterised in the media and by SASSA spokespeople as indicating a sudden increase or “spike” in application numbers, driven by an uptick in attempts to access the grant fraudulently. 

In a televised interview, SASSA spokesperson Paseka Letsatsi dismissed many applicants as “chancers” and “fraudsters” trying to cheat the system and said that SASSA did not read too much into the numbers having “skyrocketed”, given that the majority of these applicants would not be approved for the grant anyway. 

The Universal Basic Income Coalition (UBIC) is compelled to respond to these sweeping statements which villainise millions of vulnerable people—the vast majority of whom are trying to access meagre assistance in the face of dire food poverty, as is their constitutional right. 

Numbers have not ‘skyrocketed’

17.2 million applications in September does not represent a sudden spike in applications. It is in line with the historical trend of application numbers for the grant as SASSA’s own data shows: 

Applications and approvals for, and payments of the SRD grant September 2021 – September 2024

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Data gathered from SASSA presentations to parliament and parliamentary committees, court affidavits and media releases

NOTE: We are not aware of data for the period September 2023 to April 2024, and payment and approval data post-September 2023 and July 2024 respectively having been made public by SASSA. 

NOTE: In April 2022 the grant criteria changed and all existing applications became invalid forcing people to apply again at short notice (as such application numbers dropped significantly at that time, taking two years to recover). 

As SASSA was forced to clarify in a statement issued on Monday, applications for the SRD grant are cumulative, in the sense that they are submitted once, and then remain valid and re-assessed on a month-to-month basis unless withdrawn. As such 17.2 million new applications were not submitted for the SRD grant in September 2024. There were 17.2 million valid existing applications in that month—an increase of 1.8 million new applications since September 2023, and only 55000 since July 2024. 

These increases can partly be explained by the numbers of people ageing into eligibility for the grant, compared to those ageing out (i.e. more people are turning 18 than are turning 60), as well as increases in the cost of living relative to income (and likely increases in food poverty), and the fact that the total number of unemployed people (including discouraged work seekers) has increased by 0.3 million over the past year. In short, they represent the actual level of need that exists for income support and are an indicator of the scale of the crisis of poverty and hunger among adults in South Africa. 

Application numbers almost exactly reflect eligibility estimates

According to the qualifying criteria for the SRD, almost everyone who is between the ages of 18 and 60 and only has “means” (income or financial support) below R624 per month, is eligible to receive the grant. Researchers and experts have given us credible estimates of how many people actually meet these criteria:

  • An international team of researchers from Oxford, New Orleans, Cape Town and Stellenbosch estimated that 16.5 million people were eligible for the grant in 2022. 
  • In the same year, an expert panel appointed by the Department of Social Development estimated that 16.7 million people were eligible for the grant.
  • The previous Minister for Social Development referred repeatedly in public forums to estimates she had been provided which indicated that 18.3 million people aged 18-59 had means below R624. 

It is clear that approximately 17 million people are in fact eligible for and in need of the SRD grant in South Africa. 

But why are SASSA so keen to play down application numbers as not being a true reflection of eligibility? Because the budget they receive from the National Treasury only allows them to pay the SRD grant to about 8.5 million people per month. 

Because of this arbitrary budget cap, SASSA needs to find a way to prevent approximately 9 million eligible people from accessing the grant each month and needs a justification for doing so. Fear-mongering about high levels of fraud provides just such a justification. 

Claims of fraud are not substantiated and do not justify rates of exclusion

Whilst there will always be some attempts to access grants disingenuously, SASSA has failed to provide any evidence substantiating the widespread occurrence of fraud in the current SRD grant system, and certainly none that would in any way justify the exclusion of 50% of applicants.

Indeed, in a presentation given to a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee in August this year, SASSA indicated that they had identified 23 fraud cases in relation to the SRD grant in Q1 2023, and only one case in Q1 2024. (For comparison, while still very low, child support grant fraud cases were 51 and 60 respectively in the same periods). This utterly belies SASSA’s claims to the media that fraud cases have climbed so drastically as to explain the exclusion of 9 million applicants from the grant! 

If nothing else this points to an egregious lack of accountability for inaccurate public statements by government officials, and an unfortunate failure on the part of members of the media to interrogate official claims. 

UBIC has in recent months drawn attention to the use of draconian measures by SASSA to ostensibly combat fraud, which in fact serve to exclude many more deserving beneficiaries than fraudsters. 

These include the use of algorithms to profile beneficiaries based on unknown third-party data, as well as the use of facial recognition checks widely known to be extremely difficult to satisfy and all but impossible for holders of green ID books.

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Since these numbers came to the media’s attention last week, SASSA has mischaracterised and misrepresented them by painting communities that they have a fundamental duty to serve as fraudsters and chancers. 

This is done in the service of justifying the massive levels of unfair exclusion from the SRD grant, which stem from the woefully inadequate budget provided for the grant by the National Treasury.

The management and administration of the SRD grant is rife with barriers to access which give rise to these breathtaking levels of exclusion, and our members the Institute for Economic Justice and #PayTheGrants are challenging these in the Pretoria High Court, with the hearing scheduled to take place on 29 and 30 October.

[ENDS]

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