social grants

Special advisor to the Minister of Social Development, Zane Dangor, says the child support grant is too low and the department is extremely concerned about that.
Dangor is of the view that without the grants, a lot of people would be in a desperate situation.

He says that the myth that social grants create dependency has been debunked, "Whether a new governing party comes in, they will have to pay the grants. The issue is not dependency, the issue is how much is enough. What is affordable?”

Police seized 36 pension cards and an undisclosed sum of money from a 25-year-old man during a sting operation in Durban.

Police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel, Shooz Magudulela, says the Umlazi K9 Unit received information about ‘fraudulent activities’ at a service station in Amanzimtoti‚ south of the city.

The team found the man at an ATM‚ withdrawing cash‚ with 36 South African Social Security Agency cards in his possession‚ with pin codes written on them.

The Western Cape and Gauteng are the only two provinces in South Africa where more than two-thirds of households earn salaries as their main sources of income.

In the rest of the country, according to the 2015 General Household Survey, households rely significantly on grants to get by.

According to the report, social grants have an ‘overwhelmingly positive impact’ on poverty reduction, adding that, “They dominate the income profile of many poor households and play a vital role in sustaining lives and livelihoods for households that have no employed members.”

The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) and life assurance company, Lion of Africa, have reached a settlement before an application by the agency was heard by the Constitutional Court.

The agreement‚ which was made an order of the court‚ allows the agency to stop funeral policy deductions from three types of children’s grants.

The judgment means that there would be no new deductions from the three forms of children’s grants between January and May‚ when new regulations from the minister disallowing deductions from children’s grants take effect.

Social Development Minister, Bathabile Dlamini, says new regulations will remove all loopholes in the transfer of social development grants.
 
The Department of Social Development says it is clamping down on institutions that are making unauthorised deductions from social grant beneficiaries.
 
Minister Bathabile Dlamini briefed journalists in Parliament that her department had previously set up a ministerial task team in 2014 to investigate the deductions.
 

The ongoing fraud involving social grants by ‘syndicates’, which has left many South African State Security Agency (SASSA) beneficiaries angry and insecure, appears to originate from the Western Cape.

This is according to SASSA service provider, Cash Paymaster Services (CPS), after it launched an intensive internal investigation following numerous complaints from beneficiaries about unauthorised deductions from their social grant payments.

The Congress of the People (COPE) party says it will lay charges against alleged corrupt officials of the South Africa Social Security Agency (SASSA) in KwaMhlanga, Mpumalanga, who have allegedly been making unlawful deductions from grants.
 
COPE spokesperson, Dennis Bloem, says it has come to the party’s notice that SASSA employees are deducting money from pensioners at pay points.
 

The Constitutional Court ruled the awarding of the multibillion rand social grants administration contract to Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) is invalid.

AllPay Consolidated Investment Holdings took the matter to the country's highest court after it lost the tender due to alleged irregularities to CPS.

The tender, worth 10 billion rand, for the administration of social grants, was awarded by the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA).