Chairperson, the SA Social Security Agency undertakes an assessment of applicants for social relief of distress, SRD, to make sure that they meet the requirements of the Social Assistance Act of 2004 and regulations promulgated in August 2008.
An application form is completed for each applicant and supporting documents to verify information must be attached to the application. Applicants must be South African citizens, permanent residents or refugees with insufficient means to meet their families' most basic needs.
The following categories of persons qualify as recipients of SRD: refugees who have refugee status; a person awaiting payment of an approved grant; a person who has been assessed as being unfit for work for six months; a person who is not in receipt of maintenance from a parent or a spouse; a child to a breadwinner who has just passed away where the recipient or the applicant must have applied for the grant - applicants cannot merely insist that they want to qualify because their breadwinner has passed away, they must have applied before asking for SRD; a person whose family's breadwinner has been admitted to an institution funded by the state, like a prison, a psychiatric hospital, an old age home, a rehabilitation centre for substance abuse or a child and youth care centre; a person that has been affected by a disaster where that area had been defined as a disaster area and is under the management of the Disaster Management Act, Act 57 of 2002; and persons where refusal of the application of the SRD may cause undue hardship.
We need to specify that the previous Minister, Zola Skweyiya, made a special proclamation with regard to the regulation that allowed children of school-going age to obtain school uniforms when they are in need of uniforms. He did this because they were recipients of the grant and that automatically caused them not to qualify, but the promulgation ensured that the provision also included them. Thank you.