A stipend equal to R1,050 on a temporary basis secured over and above the regular Old Age Grant payment was received by many senior citizens in South Africa, courtesy of the government as it endeavored to alleviate the burden of the surging cost of living that the country’s pensioners have to endure.
The government emphasized that the grant would be paid as a complimentary benefit, separate from the regular rate benefit, to extend targeted socio-economic assistance to everyone in the grant system without subjecting them to further application body pain. Therefore, this supplement was followed by automatic augmentation, and benefits under the Old Age grant program who satisfied the SASSA system were authenticated.
Automatic Enlistment/Eligibility
The qualification criteria were simple for an R1,050 top-up: an applicant must already have been on either the Earliest Old Age Pension or Old Age Pension by large, and SASSA uses eligibility criteria for the Old Age Grant, including fixed criteria for an estate assets are needed to be proven. There was nothing further beneficiaries had to process, as the extra sum was added to Old Age Pension payments immediately by the first week of December, following SASSA payment dynamics.
“In the notice, beneficiaries were reminded by officials that no official member of the South African Social Security Agency will ever ask them or anyone else for personal or bank information for payment. Benefit recipients are urged to only believe in official SASSA channels for information around payment.”
Impacts on Old People and the Community at Large
For many older persons, the R1,050 raised was the right choice for their day-to-day lives; it came in as a “breath” for a moment’s respite, a word of support: something that came right when perhaps the household faced those little surprises such as unexpected bills to pay, or just a little something more to the available budget. Not a permanent farewell to an increase on the grant but, nevertheless, it somewhat lightened the load amidst a very available vexing period on the economy.