‘Scenes outside Sassa office in Belville gave me shivers’ - Zulu
Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu says the scenes outside the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) offices in Belville left her with shivers.
This comes after police opened water cannons on grant recipients gathered outside the offices on Friday.
Police claim the elderly and disabled beneficiaries were hosed to help enforce social distancing amid fears of an increase in Covid-19 infections.
Zulu addressed the media in Cape Town where she expressed concern over the events that transpired.
“One of the things I was worried about was why are all of these people coming to one service centre when we have, under normal circumstances, quite a number of those.
“That was explained to me that most of those centres were closed due to Covid-19 and that Sassa was engaging with the mayor and city to assist us in opening those places.”
Zulu added the difficulties experienced by the grant recipients speak to a bigger crisis.
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“I’m not wanting to see what I saw when I got here in the next cycle, I don’t want to see what I saw here because what I saw here gave me the shivers from the point of view of people refusing to open up space, refusing to keep the distance.
“I said to myself ‘they are desperate, that’s why they refuse because they’re thinking if they’re not here maybe their name might be called, and they might not hear their name’ and I’m saying we can do this better.”
She vowed to ensure better service delivery across the province’s branches, including the digitisation of services.
“Let us find a way of transforming our landscape because Covid-19 has affected us. There are certain things that we need to do very differently.
“We are in agreement that we must find a different way for managing this, beyond managing queues,” she said.
Listen to Zulu below:
