Author: Marecia Damons

Budget: Social grants to increase and VAT goes up

Finance minister announces above-inflation grant increases

By Marecia Damons and Daniel Steyn

News | 12 March 2025

SASSA gets about 80,000 new SRD grant applications each month

17.4-million people have applied for the Social Relief of Distress grant since it was introduced in May 2020

By Marecia Damons

Brief | 11 March 2025

Here’s how a disabled person spent their grant

We spent time with 31-year-old Khanyo Mantshi from Khayelitsha who says his grant falls short of his needs

By Marecia Damons

News | 10 March 2025

Slow systems delay switch to new social grant card

Postbank acknowledges that completing the card transition before 20 March deadline is unlikely

By Joseph Bracken and Marecia Damons

News | 6 March 2025

About 1.9-million people still need to swap gold cards as SASSA deadline looms

Postbank admits that completing the process on time is “impossible”

By Marecia Damons

News | 4 March 2025

Serious flaws in SASSA system, MPs are told - again

Unclear why same investigators, with unclear qualifications for the job, have presented more or less the same obvious findings to Parliament a second time

By Marecia Damons and Nathan Geffen

News | 26 February 2025

Can the SRD grant court order be implemented? Activists say yes

The Department of Social Development is to appeal the recent ruling. But #PayTheGrants and the Institute for Economic Justice say it should and can be implemented

By Marecia Damons

News | 19 February 2025