{"id":881614,"date":"2026-10-27T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=881614"},"modified":"2026-10-27T15:04:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T13:04:18","slug":"new-social-grant-for-south-africa-is-coming-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/881614\/new-social-grant-for-south-africa-is-coming-2\/","title":{"rendered":"New social grant for South Africa is coming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The basic income support (BIS) grant for South Africa is still under review, prompting the National Treasury to extend the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant for another year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The extension was announced in the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) delivered by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SRD grant was initially extended only to March 2027 at the time of the February 2026 budget, which included a net increase of R22.6 billion to fund it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, the plan was to follow through on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address promises to rework the grant into a new BIS grant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was supposed to be completed in 2026, with plans to redirect funding to the new grant from 2027\/28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, in June, the Department of Social Development indicated that the process to get the new grant off the ground was more protracted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, it said it hoped to finalise the policy for a new BIS grant by March 2027, to get it ready for implementation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This would only then enable the department to initiate the legislative process needed to implement the grant in the next financial year (2027\/28).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, according to the DSD’s own timelines, the draft policy on the new grant was supposed to be submitted to the cabinet for approval to gazette the documents for public comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has not yet happened, with the DSD noting in early October<\/strong><\/a> that it was still getting ready to enter this phase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inputs from the comment period were supposed to be considered and incorporated into the draft policy from September 2026, with the policy ready for final approval by March 2027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time of the 2026 budget, Godongwana indicated that the finer points of the new BIS would be outlined at the October MTBPS. This didn’t happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, because these plans are being processed, the SRD grant has now been extended for another year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going to fewer people, for now<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Despite the extension, Godongwana expects grant payments to decline as beneficiary lists are cut due to stronger verification measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The number of social grant beneficiaries is expected to decline from 17.8 million in 2026\/27 to 17.1 million by 2029\/30, generating savings of R6.2 billion, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These savings will be reprioritised to prevent gender-based violence and femicide and to support priority health-sector interventions to combat child malnutrition and stunting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SRD grant beneficiaries will also be linked to employment, training and business opportunities through the MzansiXchange platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is one of the transformative policies that align with the intentions of the new BIS grant, which is aiming to be more of a jobseeker grant than a baseline state handout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, while reduced costs may be part of the picture going forward, there are significant risks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, the SRD grant carries an annual cost of R36 billion to the fiscus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), there is a risk that these costs could more than double, given the legal challenges attached to the grant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2025 High Court ruling found that the means-test threshold related to the SRD grant was invalid. The government appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court of Appeal in August 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judgement in the matter is pending, but if the High Court ruling is upheld, 13 million more people could qualify for the grant, pushing the budget cost to R74 billion, the PBO noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The grant currently goes out to approximately 8 million recipients at the rate of R370 per month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new basic income support grant for South Africa is still under review\u2014with the Social Relief of Distress grant now extended for another year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":786982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2115067260335243453","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2250981489055583","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18122745133979088","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[24917,17448,4103,18480],"class_list":["post-881614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-bis-grant","tag-enoch-godongwana","tag-social-grant","tag-srd-grant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=881614"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":881628,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881614\/revisions\/881628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}