The Department of Social Development said almost 40,000 non-qualifying South Africans had tried to get their hands on the COVID-19 relief grant.
This was revealed during a briefing to Parliament’s social development committee on the department’s strategic plans and response to COVID-19.
Government has established a new R350 grant for the next few months to help those in need during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Unemployed people only qualify for the relief grant if they do not receive other social grants provided by government.
Social Development acting director general Linton Mchunu said there was a need to pay people as quickly as possible.
But before that, they needed to rely on the data of other agencies to be able to see exactly who qualifies.
“Thirty-nine thousand of those should actually not be getting those grants so we saved around R13.6 million in doing that. We are in the process of sifting through and processing the applications.”
With regard to food parcels, Mchunu said they’re trying to coordinate how these were distributed.
“The context behind what we are trying to do with food parcels is really around trying to coordinate the manner in which we provide the food parcels, not just us, but also non-governmental organisations.”