South African grant recipients will be seeing big jumps in their monthly payments over the next six months, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Tuesday night.
And South Africa will get its first ever broad grant, not aimed a specifically vulnerable group: a R350 per month payment, for six months, to those who are unemployed and are not receiving another form of grant.
It is not yet clear just how the unemployed will qualify for this “special Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress grant”, and what paperwork they will have to present to claim it.
In total R50 billion will be spent on grant payments, Ramaphosa said – 10% of the total special coronavirus budget he announced, and around 1% of South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP).
Here is how those payments will be made:
- R2,800 extra in child support grants, with R500 extra paid every month between June and October, and an extra R300 in May.
- R1,500 for all other types of grants, such as disability and old-age grants, in instalments of R250 per month for the next six months.
- R2,100 for the unemployed, in payments of R350 per month for the next six months.
As of 1 April, the monthly grants were:
- R440 per child for child support grants
- R1,860 for older people, and people with disabilities
- R1,880 for war veterans and those older than 75.
