SASSA paid R1,28 billion in grants to legally eligible foreign nationals, Pule tells Parliament

Social Development Minister Dina Pule has told Parliament that an estimated R1,278 billion in social grants and Social Relief of Distress payments went to legally eligible foreign nationals during the 2025/26 financial year.

The figure was given in a written parliamentary reply to Vuyo Zungula, an MP for the African Transformation Movement, who asked how much grant funding had been paid to foreign nationals over the year. IOL reported the reply on 17 September.

Pule said the amount came to less than 1% of South Africa’s social assistance budget, and that the agency does not pay grants to anyone in the country unlawfully.

Who the money went to

Permanent residents took the largest share, at R1,12 billion in social grants. That included R931,5 million for the Older Persons Grant, R134,5 million for the Child Support Grant, R31,7 million for the Disability Grant, R8,4 million for the Care Dependency Grant, R6,6 million for the Grant-in-Aid and R3,8 million for the Foster Child Grant.

Recognised refugees accounted for a further R150,8 million, made up of R105,8 million in Child Support Grants and R32,7 million in Older Persons Grants.

A further R10,6 million went out through the Social Relief of Distress grant. Lesotho Exemption Permit holders received R9,18 million of that, Zimbabwe Exemption Permit holders R448 810, asylum seekers R962 370, and holders of the Special Angolan Dispensation Permit R24 420.

Taken together, the categories Pule listed amount to about R1,278 billion.

What the categories mean in South African law

The groups named in the reply are not a single block. Permanent residents hold the same right to live and work here indefinitely that citizens do, short of the vote. Recognised refugees have been through a formal status determination under the Refugees Act. Holders of the Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Angolan permits were granted a documented right to remain when their previous dispensation was wound up or extended.

Each of those statuses is a matter of record at the Department of Home Affairs, which is the point of the verification Pule described.

SASSA does not provide social grants or SRD benefits to illegal immigrants or any person unlawfully present in the Republic.

Pule told Parliament that the agency’s eligibility checks, including verification against Home Affairs records, are built to keep the system inside the law that governs social assistance.

Where the numbers come from

The Older Persons Grant is the single largest line in the reply, and it follows from the qualifying age rather than from nationality. A permanent resident who has reached the qualifying age and passed the means test draws the same grant as a citizen who has. The Child Support Grant works the same way, paid to the primary caregiver of a qualifying child, and it is the second largest line for both permanent residents and recognised refugees.

The SRD grant is the smallest line by a wide margin, and the only one that runs through the exemption permits. It is also the grant most closely tied to the monthly means test.

The question the reply answers, and the one it does not

What Parliament now has on the record is the cost of grants to people whose presence here is documented. The reply does not set that figure against the total social assistance budget, so the 1% estimate is the only proportion Pule gave.

What the reply also does not do is separate the R1,278 billion from the far larger question of who is in the country without documentation. On that, Pule’s answer is procedural: the verification runs against Home Affairs records, and a person who is not on them does not pass.

That is the control the department says it relies on. Whether it holds in every case is a question for the agency’s own audit trail, which the reply does not cover.

What it means for the queue

For a grant recipient in a Home Affairs or SASSA queue, the practical effect of the reply is a clearer line between two things that are often spoken about as one. A permanent resident drawing an Older Persons Grant is inside the law and inside the budget. A person with no status is outside both, and the agency says its system is built to catch that.

The R1,278 billion is the first figure Parliament has put on the first group. It is under 1% of what the country spends on social assistance, and it is now a matter of public record rather than an estimate in a debate.

The written reply stands as the record for the 2025/26 financial year. SASSA’s next annual report will show whether the verification Pule described held at the same level across the full period.

Source: IOL, SASSA paid an estimated R1.28 billion to eligible foreign nationals in South Africa (17 September 2026).