According to Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu, the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) is developing a strategy to assist recipients of the R350 social relief distress grant (SRD) in finding employment.
The EFF questioned what steps the department would take to assist the more than 500,000 persons who will be turned away from the SRD owing to financial restrictions. In response, Zulu stated that the department was developing a plan to assist people who couldn’t be helped by social grants or the SRD grant and direct them into more long-term employment opportunities and other economic pursuits. According to Zulu, the department would concentrate on helping those in need, with a concentration on young people and women in particular.
Zulu’s department has an R44 billion budget that is only sufficient to support 10.5 million SRD users through the end of march in the next year. According to Lindiwe Zulu, minister of social development, those who earn less than R624 per month should be eligible for the R350 social relief of distress grant. The state of the nation address (SONA) has focused on solutions for issues at state-owned firms, aid for start-up businesses like hemp growers, and urgently needed economic improvements.
In order to help beneficiaries of the covid-19 SRD find employment, it is said that SASSA is now working to develop a data-sharing partnership with the Departments of Public Works and Infrastructure and Employment and Labour.
Zulu said, “In addition, the department has completed a framework on integrating social protection users to sustainable livelihood projects, with an aim to providing skills, targeting the jobless and those on the srd database to boost chances of employment.”
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