Mayibongwe Maqhina|Published
The R370 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant will remain in place for another year, National Treasury announced on Wednesday, as work continues on a proposed replacement aimed at linking beneficiaries to employment and other opportunities.
In its 2026 Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS), Treasury said the extension would allow further work on integrating the grant with labour market activation, skills development and enterprise support initiatives.
“Beneficiaries will be linked to employment, training and business opportunities through the MzansiXchange (data exchange platform), enabling cross-government beneficiary verification),” Treasury said.
The decision falls short of an undertaking by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana that the modalities and format of a new grant, referred to by President Cyril Ramaphosa as a Livelihood Grant, would be outlined in the MTBPS.
New grant in the pipeline
In his State of the Nation Address earlier this year, Ramaphosa said the SRD grant had played a pivotal role in alleviating widespread poverty.
“This year, we will redesign the grant to more effectively support livelihoods, skills development, work opportunities and productive activity,” he said at the time.
Godongwana said in February that discussions were under way on a New Livelihood Grant to replace the SRD.
Introduced in March 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, the SRD grant has provided support to millions of South Africans facing food insecurity.
In February, Godongwana allocated an additional R36.4 billion to extend payments at the current rate of R370 per beneficiary per month until 31 March 2027. This was up from the R34.2 billion allocated in the 2025/26 financial year.
Treasury has also identified the SRD grant as one of three expenditure risks facing government, alongside the National Student Financial Aid Scheme and compensation of employees.
“Legal challenges to the regulations governing the social relief of distress grant represents a material expenditure risk,” the MTBPS said.
Court challenge
Government has appealed to the Supreme Court of Appeal against a High Court judgment delivered in January this year, which found the means-test threshold, grant value, definition of income and income-verification arrangements to be invalid.
Treasury said the fiscal impact would depend on the outcome of the litigation and the government's policy response.
It warned that the number of beneficiaries and the overall cost of the grant could rise substantially if the High Court judgment is upheld.
“Preliminary estimates suggest that it could add three million eligible beneficiaries and increase the annual funding requirement from about R36 billion to R74 billion,” the MTBPS said.
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