South African Social Security Agency

rdf:langString South African Social Security Agency

rdf:langString South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) is a national agency of the government created in April 2005 in order to distribute social grants on behalf of the Department of Social Development. The DSD has an oversight role over the Agency but no operational control over it. It was also designed to reallocate the function of social security from South Africa's provinces to the national sphere of government and reports to the Department of Social Development (DSD). Its current chief executive officer is Busisiwe Memela - Khambula SASSA is a public entity in terms of Schedule 3A of the . The key functions of the parastatal are related to the administration and payment of social grants: the processing of applications, verification and approval of applications, disbursement and payment of grants to eligible beneficiaries, quality assurance, and fraud prevention and detection. South Africa's social welfare recipients have grown from 3.8 million in April 2001 to 11 million in March 2006, and 17 million in 2017. Millions of South Africans received the temporary Special COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress grant from May 2020 up until April 2021.