South Africa, Sept. 16 -- According to Busisiwe Kamolane-Kgadima, deputy director at the Wits Centre for Applied Legal Studies, the system is treating bank account transactions as income.

Speaking to John Maytham on CapeTalk, Kamolane-Kgadima said the problem isn't that Sassa checks whether an applicant's income is above the qualifying threshold.

Rather, the process, which cross-checks information from banks, the South African Revenue Service (Sars) and the credit bureaus to determine income, is automated.

"The problem is that one of the main factors that is used to determine whether or not you are eligible is the bank verification, so they depend heavily on that," Kamolane-Kgadima said.

The automated cross-check therefore doesn't all...