The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) took to its social media pages to rubbish a fake advertisement that is doing the rounds again. The fake advert says the agency will double the COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) Grant, which is currently worth R350.
Since the grant was first launched by the government, SASSA has had to dismiss several fake posts.
Opportunistic scammers seemingly hijacked the sincere call for the grant to be increased from unions and interest groups.
The R700 SASSA grant fake adverts proliferated ahead of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) in February where he was expected to extend the grant and groups were putting pressure on him to increase the value of the social assistance.
SASSA dismissed the rumours on February 7, and said there were no additional grants in the works.
In the SONA address, Ramaphosa extended the R350 grant by a further year to March 2023. He kept the value the same but said the government is considering and working towards implementing some sort of permanent assistance – the basic income grant, which has been widely called for.