By Anita Dangazele
- Government is now appealing a court ruling that the R370 grant must stay permanent for 8,7 million recipients like Athenkosi.
- Athenkosi, 32, and his 56-year-old mother in Kariega live on R370 each monthly, less than half the food poverty line.
Athenkosi, 32, has been unemployed since 2023. He lives in Kariega with his mother, who is 56 and also unemployed. They both depend on the R370 each of them gets from the Social Relief of Distress grant.
R740 a month is what the two of them have, for everything. Stats South Africa’s food poverty line, the minimum a single person needs just to eat, is R855 a month. Athenkosi’s grant alone does not even reach half of it.
And that R370 is not guaranteed to continue. A Pretoria high court ruled that the SRD grant must be treated as permanent, not the temporary Covid-19 measure the state says it was created as. Government is now appealing that ruling.
The state argues that making the grant permanent would encroach on the executive’s role, and change what Parliament is for. If the appeal succeeds, government keeps the power to end the grant whenever it chooses.
Athenkosi was asked what he would do if the grant ended.
“If the SRD grant ends, then we won’t have any means to survive,” he said.
“I really hope that the courts will rule in the favour of the people.”
The R370 has not moved since April 2024, when it was raised from R350. Every other social grant went up this year, between 3,6% and 3,7%, in line with inflation. The SRD grant did not.
More than 15 million people have applied for the grant. Only 8,7 million are currently being paid, though the court found up to 18,3 million South Africans could qualify. Government has said a redesign of the grant is coming, but not before the medium-term budget later this year.
Pictured above: Government is fighting to have a ruling by a Pretoria high court, that the SRD grant must be treated as permanent, not just a temporary Covid-19 measure.
Image source: SASSA SRD for South Africans/Facebook Page
