Ditlhare Tlhong, a Free State resident in her late fifties, has relied on SASSA’s Social Relief of Distress grant for between three and five years. She has learned to stretch her R370 payment to cover food and groceries in the shared family home where she lives. But when asked about her greatest worry, her answer had nothing to do with the grocery bill.
Tlhong says her biggest concern is healthcare. With no medical aid and only overburdened public facilities available to her, she knows that a single medical emergency could wipe out whatever stability she has built. It’s a fear shared by many grant recipients nationwide, who have no financial cushion to absorb an unexpected illness or injury. For Tlhong, the risk feels constant, even as she manages to get by month to month.
Careful budgeting hides a fragile reality
Despite her fears, Tlhong reports that no one in her household has gone without food in the past month. Her SASSA grant is deposited directly into her First National Bank account, sparing her the transport costs that burden many other recipients to access their money.
But the R370 payment regularly runs out before her next one arrives, and rising living costs have only made her budget tighter over the years. Her situation shows how even careful management can’t fully offset a grant that was never designed to cover a health crisis.
Job hunting comes with its own risks
Unemployed and actively searching for work, Tlhong faces workplaces and SASSA offices located between five and twenty kilometres from home, in a province where jobs are scarce and South Africa’s unemployment rate exceeds 32%. Her experience in childcare and caregiving could offer a path forward, but matching those skills to available positions remains difficult. She has also never explored other government support programmes, simply because she didn’t know they existed, leaving her more exposed to the very emergency she fears most.
Asked what she would change about SASSA, Tlhong’s request was simple: increase the grant amount. Her story is a reminder that for many recipients, the real danger isn’t the day-to-day struggle they’ve learned to manage, but the one crisis they have no way to prepare for. Tlhong rates SASSA’s communication as very good, but no amount of good communication can ensure her against the one fear she can’t shake.
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