Social development minister Lindiwe Zulu says that her department has allocated R195.5 billion to the monthly payment of grants for the 2021\/2022 financial year.<\/p>\n
Presenting her departmental budget on Tuesday (25 May), Zulu said that the money will be used for the monthly payment of over 18 million social grants to beneficiaries.<\/p>\n
Zulu said that this social assistance effort continues to be South Africa\u2019s largest anti-poverty programme, and the R195 billion amount constitutes 95% of her department’s entire annual budget.<\/p>\n
She said that the remaining 5% goes towards the implementation of all the Department\u2019s programmes, including the allocations towards the administration of the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) and the programmes of the National Development Agency (NDA).<\/p>\n
Over and above the monthly grants,\u00a0South Africa introduced a number of additional grants during the Covid-19 lockdown including:<\/p>\n
Combined, these interventions reached more than 31 million South Africans over the last year, said Zulu.<\/p>\n
“Other than only representing more than half of South Africa\u2019s population, this figure verifiably represents how the department has attended to the basic necessities of the most vulnerable among us,” she said.<\/p>\n
“88% of the respondents to the Department\u2019s study on the implementation and impact of the Covid-19 SRD grant indicated that they pooled their SRD grants together with the rest of their households\u2019 incomes to take care of the needs of everyone in the households.”<\/p>\n
Zulu said that the success of these grants, and the R350 SRD grant in partiucalr, will help inform discussions around government\u00a0 planned introduction of a basic income grant.<\/p>\n