The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) said it was in receipt of numerous grievances with regard to declined R350 Covid-19 grant applications.

Sassa stated that some applications have been declined as they did not meet the correct criteria.

For a person to qualify for the Covid-19 grant, they need to be older than 18, be unemployed – without any kind of income, not be the recipient of any government assistance such as UIF or NSFAS, social grants or any other financial support.

The majority of declined applications are said to be people who are already on the UIF database or who qualify to receive it.

In such cases, Sassa said, the applicants were advised to contact the Department of Employment and Labour to either apply for UIF or to follow-up with their applications.

Sassa verifies all applications by matching their data with other public and private databases to eliminate possibilities of “double-dipping”, so that only deserving applicants receive this financial aid.

Sassa’s CEO, Ms Totsie Memela, said the department is aware that this has caused unhappiness and thus it is important for beneficiaries to understand the criteria as the grant was not for everyone.

Read the complete article in the Highvelder.