Cape Town - While the devastating Covid-19 pandemic increased the number of child-headed households after leaving hundreds of thousands of children orphaned or without a primary caregiver, only 16 486 people have applied for the Child Support Grant Top-Up.
The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef) SA revealed last month that deaths associated with Covid-19 left nearly 150 000 children orphaned and the number rose to 207 400 when including children who have lost their primary or secondary caregiver.
Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu has now urged all relatives or siblings caring for orphaned children to come forward and apply for the top-up grant at their nearest South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) offices, saying the numbers to date were low.
According to Zulu, the top-up grant was not a new grant, but an additional monetary form of assistance to the basic child support grant for orphans.
She said increasing the amount for orphans was “the government’s latest investment aimed at creating a better life for children living in poverty”.
“The additional R240 to the standard R480 is enabled by a 2015 Cabinet-approved policy.
“The provisions of this policy enables me as the social development minister to introduce the higher value child support grant top-up for orphans.
As a result on June 1, 2022, and with the concurrence of the finance minister, I introduced the Child Support Grant Top-Up.
“By ‘top-up’ we mean an additional amount of R240 that supplements the standard Child Support Grant amount of R480. Only relatives caring for an orphaned child can apply for, and receive the Child Support Grant Top-Up,” she said.
Zulu gave updates on the Child Support Grant Top-Up and Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) during a media briefing in Pretoria on Monday.
She said nearly 7.5 million people were receiving the Covid-19 SRD grant monthly.
The department had increased the test threshold from R350 to R624.
“As we are approaching the levels of support and coverage that we committed to namely 10.5 million people, we also need to be cautious not to over-commit the government to levels of funding that are beyond the allocated budget,” Zulu cautioned. She urged applicants not to change their bank details frequently.
Zulu said beneficiaries also providing incorrect banking details was one of the problems that led to recipients not receiving the R350 grant on time.
Black Sash said the fact that the changed criteria has widened the net for more to qualify was a positive step in the right direction but much more had to be done to ensure that those who needed it, received it.
“The decrease in numbers from an estimated 10.5 million to 7.5 million is concerning in the absence of supporting evidence that persons with little to no income have secured a source of livelihood or are no longer in need of assistance in a space of three months, in light of the number of applications received.
“In June, we called for the increase in the income threshold as well as widening the net criteria for eligibility to overcome the hurdles caused by data inaccuracies. Already the figure of 10.5 million raised concerns for us in June as several million beneficiaries were being unfairly excluded from the grant, due to the erroneous criteria used by DSD.”
“We welcome the measures that make accessing the top-up easier for caregivers, such as the exclusion of a social workers report and a court order.
“It is increasingly difficult for beneficiaries to use already stretched resources to cater to the administrative elements of accessing grants.”
Cape Times