Sassa: Public servants among applicants for R350 grant
The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) has moved to clarify why some 3 million applications for the R350 relief grant had been declined.
Sassa CEO Busisiwe Memela said on Thursday that the agency put the 7 million applications through a rigourous test.
The failed applications did not meet the requirements.
“We have 2.9 million clients that had failed in the vetting process and the majority of them actually came the UIF database, Memela said.
She admitted that the vetting process still needed some refining.
“Today we got a clean and newer database. Clearly, the database was too wide and some of them got declined.”
She added: “The suspicion is that many of those clients will actually qualify which therefore means we’ll have to fast track the process of payment of those clients that have been waiting.”
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Memela said information submitted by applicants is validated against other databases, including student aid scheme NSFAS and the UIF systems.
Students and public servants are among the applicants for the relief grant.
“It’s interesting to note that we also have public servants who applied for the R350 and those were easy to get out of the system.”
Failed applicants will be given an opportunity to appeal the outcome.