Social Development Minister, Susan Shabangu, has conceded that her department’s failure to adequately prepare for the payment of social grants resulted in unnecessary delays. She has apologised to grant recipients about the extremely long queues at pay-points last week.
A technical glitch saw thousands of grant beneficiaries not receiving their money.
The department has begun the transition from the old South Africa Social Security Agency (Sassa) cards, which were provided by Cash Paymaster Services, to the Post-Office administered cards.
Shabangu briefed the media in Johannesburg.
“We never thought that the process of card swapping would be so huge. On the basis of that, I don’t think we had prepared ourselves sufficiently. We still want to apologise to our beneficiaries.”
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Tshimo Maputla
