Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1698926659196.pdf (South Africa)
Social grant performance as at end March 20/21 | P a g e The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) has been established in terms of the Money Bills Amendment Procedure and Related Matters Act (Act 9 of 2009).

The PBO provides independent, objective and professional advice and analysis to Parliament on matters related to the budget and other money Bills.

The PBO supports the implementation of the Act by undertaking research and analysis for the Finance and Appropriations Committees.
Director: Dr Dumisani Jantjies Authors: Dr Nelia Orlandi Enquiries: norlandi@parliament.gov.za Ref.

no.

21/1/3 (March 2021) To obtain additional copies of this document, please contact: Parliamentary Budget Office 4th Floor Parliament Towers 103-107 Plein Street Parliament of the Republic of South Africa Tel: +27 021 403 2360 Fax: +27 403 3153 Email: pboinfo@parliament.gov.za 1 | P a g e Table 1: Definitions of social grants 1.

CDG Care Dependency Grant 2.

CDC 3.

CG 4.

CSG 5.

DG 6.

FCG 7.

FC 8.


FP 9.

GiA 10.

OAG 11.

WVG Care Dependent Child refers to a child under the age of 18 years who require and receives permanent home care due to his or her severe mental or physical disability.

Child Grant refers to Child Support Grant, Care Dependency Grant, and Foster Child Grant.
Child Support Grant refers to a grant paid to a primary caregiver of a child who satisfies the criteria in terms of Section 6 of the Social Assistance Act of 2004 (Act No 13 of 2004).

Disability Grant refers to a grant paid to a disabled person in terms of Section 9 of the Social Assistance Act of 2004 (Act No 13 of 2004).

Foster Child Grant refers to a grant paid to a foster parent in terms of Section 8 of the Social Assistance Act of 2004 (Act No 13 of 2004).
Foster Child refers to any child who has been placed in the custody of a foster parent in terms of the Children Act No.

38 of 2005 or Section 290 of the Criminal Procedure Act of 1977 (Act No 51 of 1977).
Foster Parent In terms of the Children’s Act No.38 of 2005, foster parent means a person who has foster care of a child by order of the children’s court and includes an active member of an organization operating a cluster foster care scheme and who has been assigned responsibility for the foster care of a child.

Grant in Aid refers to a grant paid to a person who satisfies the criteria in terms of Section 12 of the Social Assistance Act of 2004 (Act No 13 of 2004).
Old Age Grant refers to a social grant paid to an aged person in terms of Section 10 of the Social Assistance Act of 2004 (No 13 of 2004).

War Veteran Grant refers to a grant paid to a person who satisfies the criteria in terms of Section 11 of the Social Assistance Act of 2004 (Act No 13 of 2004).

(A person who attained the age of 60 years; or owing to a physical or mental disability, is unable to provide for his or her maintenance) 12.

SRD Social Relief of Distress 1.


Purpose The purpose of the social grant fact sheet is to provide Members with the performance of social grants and the provision of social relief of distress as presented by the South African Social Security Agency’s statistical report as at end March 2021.

2.

Introduction Social assistance is by far, one of the most effective pro-poor programmes that has and continues to keep even more vulnerable South Africans from falling deeper into poverty.
By the end of the period 2020/21, the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) provided income support to 11 450 005 vulnerable individuals and households throughout the country with social assistance.

In addition to the social assistance grants the Department of Social Development also provides for social relief of distress.

A temporary provision of assistance, during a disaster, intended for persons in material need that are unable to meet their or their families' most basic needs.
Social relief of distress is issued monthly for a maximum period of 3 months.

An extension of a further 3 months may be granted in exceptional cases.

2 | P a g e It should be noted that a person may not receive a social grant and social relief of distress simultaneously.

Any person who receives both social relief and a grant at the same time must repay the value of the social relief of distress received.
However, where the person who is in receipt of a social grant received social relief of distress as a result of a disaster, that amount will not be recovered.

3.
Legal Mandate The Social Assistance Act 13 of 2004 intends to provide for: The rendering of social assistance to persons The mechanism for the rendering of such assistance The establishment of an inspectorate for social assistance • • • • Matters connected therewith It further provides for the Minister, with the concurrence of the Minister of Finance, to make funds available, appropriated by Parliament for: • A child support grant • A care dependency grant • A foster child grant • A disability grant • An older person’s grant • A war veteran’s grant • A grant-in-aid The Disaster Management Act or the Fund Raising Act, 1978 provides for persons, that has been affected by a disaster, to apply for social relief of distress.
4.

Statistical information Table 2 shows that between 18.26 million and 18.49 million social grants has been paid to beneficiaries.

The 18.44 million grants paid in March 2021 benefitted 11.45 million (Table 3) beneficiaries.

The difference in the number of social grants paid and the number of beneficiaries is an indication that one beneficiary can access more than one grant.
The distribution of grants per beneficiary is as follows: Number of social grants Number of beneficiaries 951 474 2 059 866 420 839 24 656 170 Source: PBO calculation from SASSA data 3 | P a g e Table 2: Summary of the number of social grants paid to beneficiaries per month Social grants Beginning of Apr 20 Apr 20 May 20 Jun 20 Jul 20 Aug 20 Sept 20 Oct 20 Nov 20 Dec 20 Jan.21 Feb. 21 Mar.
21 CDG 154,735 154,451 157,258 157,295 157,172 157,524 158,248 159,396 149,801 149,907 149,297 149,344 150,151 CSG FCG DG GIA OAG 3,676,791 3,666,558 3,689,572 3,708,333 3,702,918 3,706,233 3,712,141 3,719,763 3,731,034 3,729,103 3,713,071 3,714,004 3,722,675 WVG 62 61 59 59 54 49 47 45 44 43 43 42 40 Total 18,290,592 18,258,883 18,312,639 18,390,918 18,369,977 18,441,811 18 480 809 18,534,288 18,488,359 18,265,487 18,270,175 18,336,362 18,440,572 Source: SASSA statistical report, March 2021 Table 3 shows the distribution of social grants per region.
The total number grant beneficiaries increased from 11.31 million at the end of April 2020 to 11.45 million at the end of March 2021.

The total increase in social grant beneficiaries amounts to 137 933 or 1.2 per cent in 2020/21.
Table 3: Total Number of beneficiaries receiving social grants by region and the change between April 2020 and end March 2021 Region End of March 2021 End of April 2020 Change EC FS GP KZN LP MP NC NW WC Total Source: Source: SASSA statistical report, March 2021. note: data used as presented 1 | P a g e The highest number of beneficiaries amounting to 2.45 million, at the end of March 2021, were in KwaZulu Natal and the lowest number of beneficiaries amounting to 300 707 were in the Northern Cape.
The highest increase in social grant uptake is in Gauteng amounting to 40 961.
In addition to social grants, social relief of distress is paid to South African citizens or permanent residents, who have insufficient means and meet one or more of the following criteria: The applicant is awaiting payment of an approved social grant The applicant has been found medically unfit to undertake remunerative work for a period of less than 6 months The bread winner is deceased and application is made within three months of the date of death     No maintenance is received from parent, child or spouse obliged in law to pay maintenance, and proof is furnished that efforts made to  obtain maintenance have been unsuccessful The bread winner of that person’s family has been admitted to an institution funded by the state (prison, psychiatric hospital, state home for older persons, treatment centre for substance abuse or child and youth care centre) The applicant has been affected by a disaster as defines in the Disaster Management Act or the Fund Raising Act, 1978 The person is not receiving assistance from any other organization or    Refusal of the application for social relief of distress will cause undue hardships Table 5 shows that R19.
54 billion has been spent on the Social Relief of Distress Covid-19 allocation, to between 4.4 million and 6.1 million (Table 6) beneficiaries.

It should be noted that beneficiary numbers are only available until end December 2020.
Table 5: Social Relief of Distress Covid-19 expenditure (please note: February numbers are the total as at end February 2021) Region EC FS GP KZN June 20 R’000 133 481 48 088 194 469 205 766 July 20 R’000 406 371 163 459 676 183 674 227 Aug. 20 R’000 90 124 38 282 159 188 158 867 Sept. 20 R’000 160 968 63 290 219 351 267 456 Oct. 20 R’000 737 980 300 162 1 183 475 1 244 278 Nov. 20 R’000 277 230 113 680 436 029 465 252 Dec. 20 R’00 254 349 105 676 421 752 427 686 Jan.21 R’000 239 961 102 767 388 196 408 372 Feb.21 R’000 2 300 464 935 404 3 678 643 3 859 842 Mar.21 R’000 235 474 100 475 415 085 398 992 Total R’000 2 574 434 1 053 675 4 168 640 4 325 910 LP MP NC NW WC NATIONAL | P a g e Table 6: Number of beneficiaries paid from the Covid -19 SRD Grant per Province Region 2020 May 2020 June 2020 July 2020 August 2020 Sept 2020 Oct 2020 Nov 2020 Dec Eastern Cape 606 590 Free State Gauteng 236 483 961 164 KwaZulu Natal 997 869 Limpopo 600 686 Mpumalanga 365 146 North West 293
 985 Northern Cape 80 823 Western Cape 575
Total 4 423 810 5 057 415 5 549 417 5 962 787 6 036 457 6 112 660 5 943 494 5 254 746 Source: SASSA statistical report, March 2021 5.
Total expenditure Table 7 provides a summary of the expenditure against the 2020/21 budget per grant.

Total preliminary expenditure on social grants and social relief of distress shows under expenditure of below 1 per cent for the 2020/21 financial year.
Table 7: National Social Grants Expenditure per grant type Social Grant type Budget R’ OAG WVG DG GIA FCG CDG CSG Sub Total Other(SRD) COVID-19 SRD Total Source: SASSA statistical report, March 2021 3 | P a g e Preliminary expenditure as at end March 2021 R’ 935