Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has announced SASSA grant increases in his 2022 budget presented to Parliament on Wednesday, 23 February.
Godongwana said the increases, which will come as a slight relief to many social grant beneficiaries around the country, take into account inflation rates.
SASSA grant increases in 2022 budget
According to the Minister’s 2022 budget speech, the SASSA grant increases are as follows:
- The old age, war veterans, disability and care dependency grants will increase by R90 in April.
- These grants will also increase by a further R10 in October.
- The foster care and child support grants will increase by a once off R20 in April.
Godongwana said the Department of Social Development will initiate a new extended child support grant for double orphans.
This is aimed at encouraging “the care of orphans within families rather than foster care,” he explained.
According to the detailed Budget Review published by National Treasury, the Department will receive R1.6 billion in the outer years of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) for this extended child support grant.
R44b for SRD grant extension
Godongwana also allocated R44 billion for the one-year extension of the R350 social relief of distress (SRD) grant until March 2023. President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the extension earlier in February in his State of the Nation Address (SONA).
“The total number of grant beneficiaries will increase by an average annual rate of 1.5 percent, from 18.4 million in 2021/22 to 19.2 million in 2024/25,” the Budget Review stated.
“These numbers exclude the 10.5 million beneficiaries of the special COVID‐19 social relief of distress grant in 2022/23.
“The child support and old age grants together account for more than half of total grant expenditure over the MTEF period. These grants will support a total of 17.2 million beneficiaries in 2022/23.”
The National Treasury also gave the clearest indication yet that it is open to allocating funds for further social protection measures when the SRD grant ends next year.
“Over the medium term, conditions for extending this or a similar grant will include improved targeting to ensure that the people who most need this grant can access it, as well as improved linkages with labour market activation programmes,” it stated in the Budget Review.