Sassa CEO assures grant payment problems resolved
South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) CEO Busisiwe Memela-Khambula says the issues that led to delays and non-payments of social grants in September have been resolved.
She was speaking at the launch of the Child Poverty and The Child Support Grant (CSG) Review Report in Johannesburg on Friday.
Some 600,000 grant beneficiaries were left with empty pockets in September due to what was described as a technical glitch at the state-owned bank.
The figure represents some 10% of the more than five million beneficiaries who access their grants through Postbank.
Memela-Khambula says they have worked to ensure there is no repeat of the September debacle.
"We have ensured that 70% of our elderly persons receive their old age pension fund every month, though we got disappointed by the challenges we had with Postbank, which is the distributor, actually in the past few months.
“We are pleased to say through the work of both director-generals, we have worked consistently to look at what we need to do differently to make sure that the challenges we had in the past months should never ever happen again.
“But again, what I think we don't communicate enough is that our people have choices. All we need to do is communicate with them and tell them what the choices are," she said.
Meanwhile, Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu said the report is a challenge to all to inspire hope and ensure a brighter future for all children.
"To reinforce the CSG’s continued relevance, the department is currently working on a policy through which we will be integrating the receipt of children's grants with the government’s other basic services in the very near future. This policy will ensure that these beneficiaries — namely, children — will benefit from receiving the diverse bouquet of government interventions that will necessarily improve their human development and dignity," she said.
The report showed that 13 million children receive a social grant of R510 a month per child.
During the previous financial year, the department allocated a budget of R77 billion for the payment of the grant.
The review assessed the state of child poverty in the country, the impact of the child social grant on child poverty, as well as the value of the child social grant in the context of child poverty, and the cost of raising a child.
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