Cape Town - More Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant applicants may now be eligible to qualify as Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu has proposed adjusting the income threshold from R350 to R624.
This change is contained in the Government Gazette published on Friday with comments open until July 29.
In the gazette, Zulu indicated that from time to time, with the agreement of the Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, the income threshold would be amended.
Zulu’s proposal follows intense public pressure from civil society organisations that have, among others, demanded she lift the income eligibility threshold from R350 to R624, the food poverty line, and lift the budget cap of R44 billion to cater to all those who qualify for the grant.
They also demanded the removal of the clause forcing applicants to reapply every three months.
In April the department introduced a revised qualifying criterion for the R350 SRD grant which the organisations said deprived millions of people in need of social assistance.
Regulation 2 (5) of the Social Assistance Act (SAA) Regulations reduced the income threshold to qualify for the Covid-19 SRD Grant from R595 under the Disaster Management Regulations to R350 under the SAA Regulations.
The civil society organisation, through its legal representatives Centre for Applied Legal Studies, last month launched litigation against the government over the “unfair” regulations that govern the SRD grant, seeking the Gauteng High Court to set aside sections of the SAA regulations and declare them invalid and unlawful.
In its founding affidavit, the Black Sash Trust argued that the effect of this reduction was that the significant numbers of poor and vulnerable people who received the Covid-19 SRD grant under the Disaster Management Regulation between May 2020 and April 2022 would no longer qualify for the grant under the SAA Regulations.
It also noted that the reduction was not in the draft regulations of February, that there was no public consultation on this and that reducing the income threshold was a regressive measure and should not be allowed.
#PayTheGrants co-ordinator Israel Nkuna said the income threshold was responsible for many applications being rejected as “alternative income sources”.
“Whether there’s R350 or R624 sitting in a bank account, that amount might not reflect the assets of one single individual. Often it’s the pooled resources of several people in a community, some of whom don’t have a bank account in their name.
“If the Minister for Social Development, Treasury, the President, and other government officials were closer to the people, they would understand that there are times when some people have a small amount of extra cash and they share it with family members.
“Is it fair if the recipient’s bank account goes over the threshold – by even R1 for one month – and they suddenly don’t qualify for the SRD anymore?” he said.
Nkuna said it was either the government didn't understand how South Africans lived or it don’t care and preferred to use austerity as an excuse to cut off crucial aid to its people. Nkuna said the Department must scrap all qualifying criteria for the SRD grant.
“If our ministers took the time to find out how people live, and what strategies they use to survive, they might stop fiddling with the amount for the threshold of the grant. They would scrap the threshold right away.
“The qualifying criteria are discriminating against people in serious need, they’re inefficient and don’t do the job they were designed to,” Nkuna said.
Activist Franscina Nkosi said although this reverses the department’s April decision to make the threshold R350, most would still be disqualified as there was a backlog of those who were declined.
Nkosi reiterated the organisation’s calls for the government to commit to engaging with civil society to develop a policy for the vital introduction of a sustainable universal R1500 basic income grant.