Court ruling could end permanent R370 lifeline for millions of struggling South Africans

For millions of South Africans with little to no income, a single court ruling stands between them and a permanent monthly lifeline. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) will hear arguments that could decide whether the R370 social relief of distress (SRD) grant remains a lasting part of the country’s social assistance system, or reverts to a temporary measure subject to government discretion.

The dispute traces back to a Pretoria high court decision that sided with the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) and the #PayTheGrants campaign. Those advocacy groups challenged both the grant’s design and how it is administered. The high court found that the government’s own data showed the grant could reach as many as 18.3-million eligible people, yet the Treasury budgeted for only 10.5-million. It declared several grant regulations unconstitutional, including the requirement that applications be made online only, a barrier the court found excluded vulnerable people in rural areas without smartphone access.

The government introduced the SRD grant in 2020 during the pandemic to help people who had lost employment. It was initially set at R350 and raised to R370 in 2024. The high court found that increase insufficient, noting the grant’s real value had declined substantially since May 2020 when adjusted for inflation. The court also declared unconstitutional the income threshold of R624 per person per month, which falls below the poverty line, and ordered the government to devise a plan to progressively raise the grant’s value.

Now the state is fighting back.

Adv Thembi Ntoane, representing the social development minister and the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa), argues in her appeal papers that the high court misunderstood the grant’s nature. “In upholding the finding of the court a quo that the Covid-19 SRD is permanent would have the effect of completely changing Parliament’s purpose for the Covid-19 SRD and turning it to a permanent income grant for the unemployed,” she states. She contends that accepting the grant as permanent would improperly expand executive authority beyond what lawmakers intended when they designed it as a temporary Covid-19 measure.

On the online-only application requirement, Ntoane challenges the court’s reasoning directly. “The court accepted such submissions without any supporting evidence placed before the court,” she argues, pointing to the fact that more than 15-million people have applied through the digital platform and over 8.7-million who met qualifying criteria have been paid. She frames this as evidence that the government ensured access to social assistance in line with its constitutional obligations.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana raises a different concern: cost. If the grant were extended to cover 18-million people instead of 10.5-million, he argues, it would strain state finances. Using 2023/24 figures, the Treasury calculates that implementing the high court’s order would add R93.5-billion to a total grants allocation of R253.8-billion. Adv Gilbert Marcus, representing the finance minister, defends the government’s position on the income threshold and grant value. “The premise of not increasing the threshold is to avoid collapsing the whole system,” he argues, rejecting the IEJ’s claim that the state acted unconstitutionally by setting these limits.

The IEJ counters that the online-only requirement remains a genuine barrier for eligible people seeking assistance. The organization also contends that the R20 increase to the grant fails to keep pace with inflation, effectively reducing the real support available to recipients.

According to Sassa’s 2024/25 annual report, the government spent more than R266-billion on social assistance to citizens unable to support themselves and their dependants. The SRD grant sits uneasily at the edge of that system, neither fully inside it nor clearly outside.

Should the SCA rule against the government’s appeal, Godongwana has asked the court to suspend any declaration of invalidity for between 12 and 24 months, giving the state time to adjust its approach. That window, if granted, would leave millions of recipients in continued uncertainty about what their monthly assistance is actually worth and whether it will outlast the next budget cycle. The question the court must ultimately answer is whether a grant born in a pandemic has, through years of continued use, become something the state can no longer simply switch off.