Asylum seekers and special permit holders may now apply for
the Covid-19 social relief distress grant of R350 a month.
This is the outcome of litigation initiated by the
Scalabrini Centre against the minister of social development.
In the Pretoria high court, judge Selby Baqwa said people
who hold asylum seeker and special permit status in South Africa, and whose
documents were valid at the start of the national state of disaster, may apply
for the grant. Applicants will need to provide their documents.
Like any other person, they are also subject to the SA
Social Security Agency's eligibility criteria: they cannot be receiving an
income, any other form of grant, or any economic relief from the Unemployment
Insurance Fund.
The grant, which was rolled out in May this year, is
applicable for six months.
In a statement, the Scalabrini Centre said claims for May
had already closed so those affected by the court order would be entitled to
claim from June onwards.
“The coronavirus knows no borders, and does not stop to ask
for one’s nationality status. Citizens and foreign nationals in South Africa
have been seriously impacted,” the centre said. “In our papers we argued that
that it was irrational and unreasonable to exclude such persons from being able
to apply for the grant solely on the basis of their nationality or immigration
status.”
The centre pointed out that people on asylum seeker visas
that have expired during the lockdown often face dismissal from work, no income
and frozen bank accounts, and they are excluded from the majority of
governmental financial relief packages, including government food parcels,
because they do not have a 13-digit SA ID number.
“At Scalabrini, we have seen a surge in requests for help.
About 1,400 people called during the first eight weeks of lockdown requesting
assistance with food, rental or electricity.
“Many of these are families with children who would usually
have benefited from school feeding programmes,” it said. GroundUp
0 comments:
Post a Comment