Western Cape Woman Says R370 SRD Grant Leaves Her With Nothing by Month's End

• An unemployed Western Cape woman says her SASSA SRD grant is her only source of income to feed her household
• She has faced declined applications, transport costs and scarce job opportunities despite having admin and office experience
• Her story has reignited debate about whether South Africa's R370 monthly grant is enough to survive on

An unemployed woman from the Western Cape is speaking out about the daily reality of surviving on South Africa's Social Relief of Distress grant. She lives in a shared home with one or two dependants and says every rand of her R370 monthly SASSA payment goes toward food and groceries, and it still is not enough.

When R370 has to feed a family

She told The South African that she has been receiving the SRD grant for less than a year, and her experience with SASSA has not always been straightforward. A declined or lapsed application in the past forced her to seek support elsewhere, but those efforts either came to nothing or she gave up trying to navigate the process.

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Getting to her nearest SASSA office, which is between five and twenty kilometres away, adds a transport cost that eats into money she can barely spare. Despite those challenges, she rated her overall experience with SASSA as very good, saying the direct bank deposit system spared her the added expense of collecting payment in person.

Unemployment remains her biggest concern

She has a background in admin and office work, but says finding a job without connections or money to travel to interviews has made the search feel impossible. South Africa's unemployment rate currently sits above 32%, and the Western Cape is among the provinces with the highest concentration of grant recipients, alongside Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.

For her, unemployment is the single biggest obstacle standing between her family and stability. Her message to SASSA was direct: increase the grant amount. At R370 a month, she argues the SRD falls far short of covering even the most basic household needs, and that any upward adjustment could mean the difference between her family going hungry or getting by.

3 Other Briefly News stories about SASSA

• SASSA implemented a mandatory eLife Certification process without notifying grant recipients ahead of the change.
• A South African woman showed what she bought her daughter with her R580 SASSA grant.
• SASSA dismissed four officials from its Limpopo division over a R33 million social grant fraud scheme.

Source: Briefly News