Sassa urges caregivers of orphans to apply for extended child support grant

The SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) has urged caregivers of orphans to apply for the extended child support grant. 

The agency recently topped up the R480 grant with an additional R240 for guardians who care for orphaned children.

The grant is now R720 and can be paid out in cash on specific days at pay points or paid directly into a bank account.

“Sassa requests caregivers of children whose parents are both deceased or the whereabouts of one of the parents is not known to apply for the extended child support grant.”  

The grant is aimed at helping extended family care for orphaned children and keeping them within their familial environments.

“To qualify for the extended child support grant, the caregiver must produce the death certificates for both parents or death certificate for the primary parent with an affidavit confirming that the whereabouts of the remaining parent are unknown and that he/she plays no role in taking care of the child,” Sassa said.

Social development minister Lindiwe Zulu announced the extension in parliament during the department's 2022/2023 budget vote debate.

She said applications would not be processed through the Children’s Court process to ensure affected children were able to quickly receive support. 

“While we expect the extended child support grant to be implemented in June this year, we estimate it will be received by more than 190,000 relatives during the 2022/2023 financial year.” 

Of the department's budget allocation of R257bn, R248bn was allocated to cover more than 18-million social grant beneficiaries.

“This social grant investment constitutes 99.6% of the department’s budget allocation in the current financial year.”

The payment dates for August are:

Older person’s grant: From August 2

Disability grants: From August 3

All other grants: From August 4