The South Africa Social Security Agency (Sassa) has given the assurance that by close of business on Wednesday all the grants beneficiaries will get their monies through various relevant retail stores nationwide.
Acting Chief Executive Officer Abraham Mahlangu told Parliament that the entity’s payment system had significantly improved since Tuesday night.
This comes as Sassa starts to swap from Cash Paymaster Service cards to the new Postbank account cards. Mahlangu says Sassa and the South African Post Office (SAPO) are monitoring the progress hourly.
“The issue about the system performance has improved drastically. I am monitoring on an hourly basis nationally. I am taking a raw call feedback from SAPO and also from our own regional management teams who are on the ground to monitor the progress made since the system started improving since the close of business last night. I am getting feedback that people are beginning to get their grants.”
Sassa says it will no longer provide relief aid to grant beneficiaries who have not received their monies because it is confident that the error will be corrected by the end of business Wednesday. Mahlangu says people have already started to get their monies.
“We should not even a need to active a relief measures. They are confident that they will finish the queues by close of business. So the technical glitch is being attended to and our beneficiaries are getting their dues.”
Meanwhile, the Sassa workers’ strike is over. The workers are expected to return to work on Thursday after they agreed with government to resume negotiations. Social Development Minister Susan Shabangu had approached the Labour Court in Johannesburg to request it to interdict the workers from striking.
Sassa workers affiliated to the Public Servants Association have been on strike since June. The Labour Court in Johannesburg struck the case off the roll after both parties agreed to re-open the negotiation process.
Workers are expected to return to work on Thursday. They are demanding a 15 percent wage increase, while the employer is offering 7 percent.
They also want R2 500 increase on housing allowance. The strike has been going on since the 8 June.
