I tried to register my son a month after her turned 18 for an SRD grant but the website says his ID and grant is already active. What can we do?

The long answer

SASSA says it may then ask for biometric verification – which is a system of identifying a person’s unique biological characteristics like fingerprints, face and voice – and comparing these characteristics with a database of biometrics. As you probably know, there has been a massive amount of fraud at SASSA, with many people using fraudulent IDs to draw the SRD grant. GroundUp has reported extensively about the fraud. SASSA has said that it is dealing with the matter and taking steps to prevent fraud, but that there is still a lot to be done to get rid of it.

In a GroundUp article on 21 January 2025, Marecia Damons reported that SASSA also said that beneficiaries who are suspected of fraud must undergo a biometric ID verification. They would be notified through their online SRD grant profiles. The notification would inform them that once they had selected the “request identity verification” option, SASSA would send instructions on how to proceed. They would then receive an SMS with a link to verify their identity.

But in the meantime, SASSA's Electronic Know Your Client (eKYC) system had been temporarily suspended in January 2025 for improvements to it, and so people who were asked to undergo biometric verification were blocked from doing so, and so could not get their grants in January.

SASSA spokesman Paseka Letsatsi said that beneficiaries whose grant payment had been suspended would be allowed to re-apply after confirming their identity. He said that if a beneficiary’s grant status was marked “referred”, this meant the SASSA system had flagged the case for possible fraud.

And lastly and importantly, the Pretoria High Court found on 23 January 2025 that the following SRD grant regulations were unconstitutional:

• the online only application which excluded poor people without access to cell phones, computers or internet. The judge ordered that in-person applications must be allowed as well.

• the R624 monthly income limit

• and the amount of the grant itself, which was far too low, and the Judge ordered that it must be “progressively increased”.

So, lots of things going on with SASSA. I think the best advice is to immediately contact the fraud hotline at 0800 601 011, tell them of the “active” status, give them the ID number of your son and take it from there. If SASSA takes too long to respond, keep contacting them till they do, and perhaps you could also ask the Black Sash for advice. These are their contact details: 

• Email: help@blacksash.org.za

• Helpline: 072 66 33 73, 072 633 3739 or 063 610 1865.

Wishing you the best,
Athalie