UBIC Briefing Note: Consequences of Treasury's Social Grant Conditions

The Universal Basic Income Coalition (UBIC) warns that National Treasury's new budget conditions for the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) will lead to the wrongful exclusion of millions of vulnerable people from social grants, including older persons, disability, child support, and care dependency grants.

• National Treasury is implementing invasive verification methods for SASSA grants, including bank account surveillance that may misinterpret loans or shared accounts as income, database cross-checks using flawed government data, and biometric profiling using algorithmic 'fraud risk' assessments.
• The expansion of these conditions threatens millions of recipients: 6 million children risk losing the Child Support Grant (CSG), with 45.7% of recipients likely facing wrongful exclusion, and 215,000 eligible infants may be denied grants. This follows a precedent with the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant, where 90% of exclusions are reported as erroneous, affecting 10 million eligible people monthly.
• Despite a January 2025 High Court ruling that found similar SRD grant conditions to be unlawful, National Treasury is expanding these measures, which UBIC argues prioritises budget cuts over constitutional rights and disproportionately affects women, caregivers, and marginalised groups.

APA

Institute for Economic Justice (2025). UBIC Briefing Note: Consequences of Treasury's Social Grant Conditions. https://iej.org.za/press-room/statements/ubic-briefing-note-consequences-of-treasurys-social-grant-conditions/

Chicago

Institute for Economic Justice. UBIC Briefing Note: Consequences of Treasury's Social Grant Conditions. 2025. https://iej.org.za/press-room/statements/ubic-briefing-note-consequences-of-treasurys-social-grant-conditions/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |author=Institute for Economic Justice |title=UBIC Briefing Note: Consequences of Treasury's Social Grant Conditions |date=20 May 2025 |url=https://iej.org.za/press-room/statements/ubic-briefing-note-consequences-of-treasurys-social-grant-conditions/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{instituteforeconomicjustice2025ubic, author = {{Institute for Economic Justice}}, title = {{UBIC Briefing Note: Consequences of Treasury's Social Grant Conditions}}, publisher = {Institute for Economic Justice}, year = {2025}, month = may, url = {https://iej.org.za/press-room/statements/ubic-briefing-note-consequences-of-treasurys-social-grant-conditions/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }