• SASSA says that recent misinformation that alleged its grants would double in June were completely false.
• It said that it has to constantly address the spread of fake news about its grants, which is growing exponentially.
• There will be no more grant increases but for one expected in October this year.

There is too damn much fake news and misinformation, says SASSA – South Africa’s Social Security Agency – but perhaps not in those words. It says that the spread of fake information about its grants, which support 19 million South Africans, is rapid and growing exponentially.

In an announcement that the agency was forced to make to address recently circulating misinformation that SASSA would be doubling its grant payments in June, SASSA pleads beneficiaries to not expect any increases for next month.

“SASSA deals and has to correct disinformation created by some faceless people whose intentions are to mislead, cause panic and create false hope amongst SASSA beneficiaries and the public at large,” it said.

“We appeal to our beneficiaries not to expect any double payment in June as stated in various fake news reports, particularly on social media platforms.”

It adds that the reports are untrue and should be “rejected with the contempt they deserve.” There was a grant increase this year in April, though most of the SASSA grants went up by a few hundred Rands. No where near the “doubling of grants” the fake piece was promising.

SASSA says that a following grant increase will take place in October, but that it will be in line with the Minister of Finance’s policy statement and likely be by another few hundred Rand.

“Any other increase not announced by credible and relevant authorities should be treated as lies,” stressed Paseka Letsatsi, the SASSA National Spokesperson.

Fake reports, often circulated on TikTok by anonymous accounts, will contain seemingly believeable information for beneficiaries. Most of the time, this information only confuses the people receiving SASSA grants, which include some of South Africa’s most vulnerable groups and the people that care for them.

It said that “reports have been spreading like wildfire that SASSA has announced ‘New Rules Could Affect Your Pension’ from 10 June. The report has even gone further and announced various dates for different provinces. This is not an official announcement from SASSA.”

Official changes, it says, have already been rolled out.

On 30th April 2025, the agency launched a verification process for select grant beneficiaries in the May 2025 payment run to encourage to head to SASSA offices to update their information. These beneficiaries were only those that used identification other than the normal 13-digit South African ID number.

“We appeal to our beneficiaries to only rely on credible sources of information on our official social media pages. Before anyone can share any information pertaining to social grants, they must first verify its authenticity to avoid disseminating false information that may cause anxiety and stress to our beneficiaries,” concluded the spokesperson.

SASSA Gold Cards will stay in operation

Despite months of deadlines that it was forced to push back again and again, SASSA said at the end of last month that it would not be cutting access to the Postbank Gold Cards at the end of May, instead they would continue to function alongside the new Postbank Black Cards.

This was due to millions of beneficiaries still not migrating to the Black Cards in time for each of the consecutive deadlines, which counted three different attempts since the beginning of the year.