A legal expert at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University) has raised concerns about the South African Social Security Agency’s (Sassa) automated verification system for the R370 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant.
Image credit: Sassa
According to Busisiwe Kamolane-Kgadima, deputy director at the Wits Centre for Applied Legal Studies, the system is treating bank account transactions as income.
Speaking to John Maytham on CapeTalk, Kamolane-Kgadima said the problem isn’t that Sassa checks whether an applicant’s income is above the qualifying threshold.
Rather, the process, which cross-checks information from banks, the South African Revenue Service (Sars) and the credit bureaus to determine income, is automated.
“The problem is that one of the main factors that is used to determine whether or not you are eligible is the bank verification, so they depend heavily on that,” Kamolane-Kgadima said.
The automated cross-check therefore doesn’t allow applicants to explain the transactions, which may be once-off payments like a funeral policy payout, leading to eligible applicants being rejected from receiving the grant, she explained.
Millions rejected
GroundUp previously reported that the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) and #PayTheGrants challenged the regulations in the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), arguing that they excluded millions of potentially eligible people.
In his ruling, Gauteng High Court Judge Leonard Twala ruled that once-off payments and gifts should not be counted as income.
Kamolane-Kgadima said Sassa and the National Treasury said around 15 million people could qualify for the grant, but only about eight million are being serviced.
“This means the rest of them, most of them, are stuck in this loophole of not being able to get access to this grant for unjust reasons,” she said.
Easier process
She stressed that the Centre for Applied Legal Studies is not calling for scrapping the automated checks, but wants human review, as well as checks and balances, included in the process.
Right now, applicants can’t provide additional information for certain transactions beyond a Sassa information request. Applicants can only provide additional information after they are rejected and appeal— a process that can take over 90 days.
Kamolane-Kgadima argues that the process — which is completely digital and cannot be resolved at a Sassa office — should be painless and streamlined so applicants who desperately need the grant get help faster, while avoiding delays that leave them waiting too long.
“If it takes you another three months to even get that heard on appeal, then it’s already another problem with that as well,” she said, emphasising the urgency of making the process work better for applicants.
