“If you come here after 7h30, you probably won’t get helped”: the struggle to get into a SASSA office

• Social grant beneficiaries are getting up as early as 4am to get to the SASSA Eerste River offices in time to be helped.
• Others sleep outside the office.
• Conditions at the branch have hardly changed in three years.

Zamicebo Nkita left his home in Macassar at 4am on Wednesday to get to the offices of the South African Social Security Agency in Eerste River, Cape Town, early enough to be helped. He needed to re-apply for the disability grant of R2,180 which he uses to support himself and his eight-year-old son.

He arrived after 7am, and had to join a queue. Nikita was one of about 90 people waiting outside the office when GroundUp arrived at 9am. At about 10am a SASSA official came out and took down the names of about 50 people in the queue before heading back inside the office. Then people were let in, ten at a time.

In 2020, GroundUp visited the Eersteriver SASSA branch where there were snaking queues and people sleeping outside. We reported on the issue again in February.

“If you come here after 7:30am, you’re late and you probably won’t get helped because you’ll be far at the back of the line,” said Nkita.

None of the taxis in Macassar travel to Eerste River at the time he leaves home in the mornings, so he has to first take a taxi to Bellville. From there, he takes a taxi to Eerste River.

“It’s very dark at that time and it’s not safe, but I don’t have a choice. If I choose to stay home and only leave later, I’ll get to SASSA later and will have to come back the next day.”

He said it can cost “up to R100” to travel to and from the SASSA branch.

Some people still sleep outside the offices to be first in line, he says. “It’s better for people who have cars because they arrive here at midnight or 1am and sleep in their cars. So even if you come here early, you might not be first because the people who slept in their cars would have arrived here before you,” said Nkita.

In 2020, GroundUp visited the Eersteriver SASSA branch where there were snaking queues and people sleeping outside. We reported on the issue again in February.

Leandre Lesch from Wesbank was in the queue to apply for the child support grant for her children aged two and nine. “I left home before 7am, but when I got here I was far at the back of the line. The place was already full,” she said.

Lesch is currently unemployed and lives with 13 family members.

She said she first visited the branch on a Friday morning in June. After waiting in the queue for “several hours”, she was told that SASSA only deals with enquiries from Monday to Thursday.

“I didn’t know that. When I returned the following week, they said I needed a bank statement. So I’m going to try again today,” said Lesch.

A beneficiary from Blackheath, who asked to not be named, said this was her third attempt to change her bank account details. When she arrived at 7am she was in the front of the second queue. “It takes about 15 minutes to get here. But we have to use Uber. That’s R65 here and about R70 back. We can’t use a taxi because the taxis don’t drop us off at our destination. So it’s a lot of money to drive out here just to come and stand here for the same problem,” she said.

Wesbank resident William Gys left home after 6am to resolve payment issues with his son’s disability grant. When he arrived, he joined the back of the first queue. At 10am, he still had not been helped.

His son, 26, suffers from epilepsy and is fully dependent on Gys and his wife. He works as a mechanic and his wife is a part-time domestic worker. She receives the Older Persons Grant of R2,180.

“Last month I came here to find out why his money wasn’t paid when it should have been … SASSA was also supposed to pay us six months in back payments but they only paid half of it. When I told my son that the money was not fully paid last night, he got a fit,” said Gys.

GroundUp sent questions to SASSA Western Cape. But in spite of a promise to do so, they had not responded by the time of publication.

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