UPDATED version 6 June UBIC Briefing Note - SASSA conditions

This briefing note by the Universal Basic Income Coalition (UBIC) analyses new conditions imposed by the South African National Treasury on the 2025/26 operating budget of the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA). The document argues that extending verification procedures used for the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant—such as bank surveillance, database cross-checks, and biometric profiling—to longer-standing grants will lead to the erroneous exclusion of millions of eligible vulnerable people, including children, seniors, and persons with disabilities.

• The National Treasury has mandated that SASSA apply verification procedures from the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant to other social grants, including the older persons’ grant, disability grant, child support grant (CSG), and care dependency grant. These measures include bank account surveillance, cross-checks against government databases (such as SARS, UIF, and NSFAS), and predictive algorithmic profiling for fraud risk requiring biometric verification.
• Evidence from the SRD grant suggests that these verification methods are fundamentally flawed and lead to high rates of erroneous exclusion. A study of 900 excluded persons found that 90% of exclusions were erroneous, with 80% of all exclusions attributed to bank checks. Furthermore, women and caregivers are disproportionately affected by bank checks, as these systems fail to distinguish between personal income and funds received for the care of others, such as child maintenance.
• The application of these conditions to the Child Support Grant (CSG) is projected to put up to 45.7% of recipients and new applicants at risk of erroneous exclusion, affecting approximately 6 million people. Specifically, 4.1 million children are at risk from bank verification, 750,000 from database checks, and 1.5 million from fraud profiling algorithms, of whom 850,000 lack the means for biometric verification.
• Biometric verification requirements create insurmountable barriers for the most vulnerable. A survey indicates that 57% of the SRD target population cannot undergo this process due to lacking a smartphone (17%), lacking internet access (21%), not owning a smart ID card (36%), or using another person's phone number for registration (21%).
• The National Treasury is requiring the Department of Social Development (DSD) to review the means-test threshold for the CSG, suggesting it be capped or reduced to the Upper Bound Poverty Line. The UBIC argues this is based on a misunderstanding of household poverty and would exclude children in the poorest deciles, potentially violating the constitutional right to basic nutrition.
• The reporting requirements imposed by the National Treasury focus on financial savings and the number of grants cancelled rather than service quality or poverty reduction. This suggests that SASSA's performance will be measured by its ability to reduce costs through the suspension and cancellation of grants.
• The UBIC contends that the National Treasury has overstepped its fiscal oversight role by unilaterally dictating specific social policy procedures to the DSD and SASSA, effectively usurping the policy-making functions of the Minister of Social Development.

APA

Institute for Economic Justice (n.d.). UPDATED version 6 June UBIC Briefing Note - SASSA conditions. https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/UBIC-Briefing-Note-SASSA-conditions.pdf

Chicago

Institute for Economic Justice. UPDATED version 6 June UBIC Briefing Note - SASSA conditions. n.d. https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/UBIC-Briefing-Note-SASSA-conditions.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Institute for Economic Justice |title=UPDATED version 6 June UBIC Briefing Note - SASSA conditions |url=https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/UBIC-Briefing-Note-SASSA-conditions.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{instituteforeconomicjusticendupdated, author = {{Institute for Economic Justice}}, title = {{UPDATED version 6 June UBIC Briefing Note - SASSA conditions}}, institution = {Institute for Economic Justice}, url = {https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/UBIC-Briefing-Note-SASSA-conditions.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }