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FILE: The elderly practice social distancing while waiting to collect their Sassa grants from Diepsloot mall on 30 March 2020. Picture: Kayleen Morgan/EWN

Zulu assures SA that R350 special COVID-19 grant will be paid this week

Unemployed South Africans are desperate for the money and the Department of Social Development seems to be struggling with the distribution of the fund.

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JOHANNESBURG - Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu said that 140,000 unemployed people would get their R350 special grant this week.

The minister said that the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) had cleared the payments.

Last week, the agency confirmed that it had only paid 10 people since the start of the distribution of the money two weeks ago.

Almost 5 million unemployed South Africans have applied for the fund.

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Unemployed South Africans are desperate for the money and the Department of Social Development seems to be struggling with the distribution of the fund.

Two weeks ago, Minister Lindiwe Zulu said that the payment of the money was going smoothly but with only 10 people paid so far how smooth is the system?

"The first few that we paid, they were the test [subjects]. The fact is that you cannot have a system that is not watertight."

She said that thousands of South Africans would receive the money this week.

The minister has committed to speeding up the payments but said that they wanted to make sure that they were paying the right people.