An Open Letter to Minister of Social Development: The Elderly Deserve Better Than the Mistreatment at SASSA Offices

Dear Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga,

This Monday, before I could start the day’s commitments, I received a call that left me deeply disturbed.

On the other end of the line was a desperate South African, who wanted me to witness what was her interaction with the SASSA Office at Maponya Mall in Soweto. The caller spoke of dozens of elderly people who have gone two months without payment of their social benefit of a grant. According to them, they have been instructed to visit this particular office, in order to resolve this disruption to her lives.

Yesterday, many of them arrived there, didn’t receive urgent assistance, and were told to return today. I am informed that many of them have made multiple trips to this Maponya Mall SASSA Office. Months are passing by with no resolution.

I decided to go and see for myself. What I encountered was not merely administrative inefficiency. It was a painful illustration of how easily the dignity of majority of poor citizens is disregarded by a system that exists specifically to serve them.

Outside the office were pensioners, many of them frail and visibly exhausted. Some had been standing in queues for hours. After hours of waiting, many of them sat on the cold floors to rest. Others did not understand why their grants had been cut off, or the documentation they needed to provide. What they shared was a consistent frustration and uncertainty. They expressed a growing sense that nobody with the authority of our public service was willing to assist them or truly cared about their plight.

These are not statistics on a spreadsheet. They are grandparents raising grandchildren. They are widows surviving on a single grant payment each month. They are people who have worked, sacrificed, paid taxes, built families, and contributed to our society for decades. At the most tender stage of their lives, one would expect compassion, urgency, and responsiveness to alleviate their stress.

Yet today, many of them are forced to spend their final years standing in endless queues, travelling long distances they cannot afford, and begging for answers from a government system that too often appears indifferent to their suffering.

Minister, social grants are not a favour. They are not gifts from politicians. They are a critical lifeline that millions of South Africans depend on for food, transport, electricity, medication, and basic survival.

When a pensioner goes two months without receiving their grant, it is not simply an administrative error. It means food is not purchased. Medication is not collected. Debts accumulate. Anxiety grows. Families suffer. The consequences are real and immediate.

What makes the situation even more concerning is that many of the people I spoke to were not angry because of a single mistake. They were angry because they felt trapped in a cycle of recurring failures. They described a system where communication is poor, accountability is absent, and vulnerable people are expected to navigate bureaucratic processes without adequate assistance.

No elderly person should have to arrive at dawn and stand in a queue for hours simply to receive information. No elderly person should be sent from one office to another without answers. No elderly person should be forced to choose between spending money on transport to a SASSA office or buying groceries. And no elderly person should be left wondering whether their next grant payment will arrive.

Minister, South Africa’s elderly deserve more than apologies. They deserve action.

The public deserves a clear explanation of why grant payments have been disrupted for some beneficiaries. They deserve transparency regarding the causes of these problems and the measures being implemented to prevent them from happening again.

Most importantly, they deserve a government that treats them with dignity.

The true test of any society is not how it treats the powerful. It is how it treats the most vulnerable.

When pensioners spend hours standing in queues seeking answers about money they rely on to survive, that test is being failed. The elderly citizens I met in Soweto are not asking for luxury. They are not demanding special treatment.

They are asking for something far more basic. They are asking for respect. They are asking for efficiency. They are asking for dignity. And they are asking for a government that remembers that public service is exactly that: service to the public.

Minister, I urge you to visit these offices yourself. Speak directly to the pensioners. Listen to their stories. Witness their frustration. See the reality that exists beyond departmental reports and official briefings.

Because until we confront the human cost of these failures, we will continue to discuss systems while ignoring the people those systems are supposed to serve.

South Africa’s elderly have carried this nation through difficult times. The least we can do is ensure that they are treated with the dignity they have earned.

Sincerely,

Herman Mashaba

ActionSA Identity: Rejects racial mobilization, focusing on “meritocracy.”