President Jacob Zuma made use of his Human Rights Day address in King William’s Town in the Eastern Cape on Tuesday to reassure social grant recipients that they would receive their money at the end of the month.

He said the government was proud of the progress it had made in extending social security assistance to the country’s people in line with the Constitution.

“Government pays social grants to almost 17 million social grants recipients which is a huge achievement in fighting poverty.

“The child support grant and older persons grant are the two largest social grant programmes with 12 million children and 3.2 million older persons’ benefitting from the social grants‚” he told the gathering.

He added that to provide further assistance‚ the government was seeking to amend the Social Assistance Act to‚ among other things‚ enable government to provide funeral benefits to the elderly and savings vehicles for caregivers of children.

“Let me take this opportunity to once again assure all who receive social grants that they will receive their money at the end of the month.”

There were concerns that the government would not be able to ensure distribution of the grants when the contract between the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) and Cash Paymaster Services’ CPS’ contract – which had previously been declared invalid by a court — expires at the end of this month. However‚ the Constitutional Court ruled on Friday that the contract would be extended for 12 months‚ under stringent conditions.