UBIC joint statement: draft amendments to the SRD regulations opposed

The Universal Basic Income Coalition (UBIC) criticizes draft amendments to South Africa's Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant regulations. While the amendments extend the grant until 2025, UBIC argues they introduce punitive clauses, such as the power to recover funds from beneficiaries and the cancellation of unpaid applications after 90 days. The coalition highlights that the R350 grant value is now below half of the food poverty line due to inflation and attributes high exclusion rates to National Treasury's budget constraints and poor administration by DSD and SASSA.

• The current SRD grant value of R350 is insufficient to prevent starvation, as inflation since 2020 has pushed its value to less than half of the food poverty line.
• Proposed amendments include a clause allowing the government to recover money from beneficiaries deemed to have benefited "irregularly" or who were not entitled to the benefit, which UBIC fears could cause financial hardship and debt.
• The government proposes to cancel applications that remain unpaid after 90 days if the applicant is untraceable or has not updated details, despite evidence that approximately 13% of beneficiaries experience non-payment due to administrative failures by DSD and SASSA.
• High rates of grant exclusion are attributed to the National Treasury imposing an arbitrary and inadequate budget allocation on the Department of Social Development (DSD) and the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA).
• The Department of Social Development previously acknowledged in July 2023 that the R350 grant had decreased by approximately 16% in real terms and that increasing it to R500 or R663 would significantly impact poverty.

APA

Weyers, D., Kas, M., & Raiters, E. (2024). UBIC joint statement: draft amendments to the SRD regulations opposed. Institute for Economic Justice. https://iej.org.za/press-room/statements/ubic-joint-statement-draft-amendments-to-the-srd-regulations-opposed/

Chicago

Weyers, Dalli, Moses Kas, and Elizabeth Raiters. UBIC joint statement: draft amendments to the SRD regulations opposed. Institute for Economic Justice, 2024. https://iej.org.za/press-room/statements/ubic-joint-statement-draft-amendments-to-the-srd-regulations-opposed/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Weyers |first1=Dalli |last2=Kas |first2=Moses |last3=Raiters |first3=Elizabeth |title=UBIC joint statement: draft amendments to the SRD regulations opposed |publisher=Institute for Economic Justice |date=16 February 2024 |url=https://iej.org.za/press-room/statements/ubic-joint-statement-draft-amendments-to-the-srd-regulations-opposed/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{weyers2024ubic, author = {Weyers, Dalli and Kas, Moses and Raiters, Elizabeth}, title = {{UBIC joint statement: draft amendments to the SRD regulations opposed}}, publisher = {Institute for Economic Justice}, year = {2024}, month = feb, url = {https://iej.org.za/press-room/statements/ubic-joint-statement-draft-amendments-to-the-srd-regulations-opposed/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }