Dear Editor
The DA has written to the Minister of Social Development, Sisisi Tolashe, and the CEO of the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), Themba Matlou, to ensure that beneficiaries going through SASSA’s biometric verification process are not left without their life-giving grants.
The DA has been inundated with calls from scared and worried grant recipients unable to care for themselves or their families, including mothers dependent on child grants and persons with disabilities who needs the disability grants.
While the DA welcomes SASSA’s efforts to enhance security and improve the integrity of their systems, it cannot be at the expense of vulnerable beneficiaries for whom their social grants is their only lifeline. At the very least, SASSA needs to provide beneficiaries with food parcels until their registration is completed.
The DA has also received complaints that beneficiaries are struggling to verify or update their details online and have been told that they must visit SASSA offices to do so. These are not beneficiaries who have thus far relied on alternative forms of identification for grant collection and must now be biometrically registered, but grant recipients simply trying to ensure that SASSA has their correct information logged. It is ludicrous that these recipients have to travel all the way to a SASSA office and brave the queues just to update a telephone number or address on the system.
SASSA must ensure that their website allows beneficiaries to update their personal details in a secure manner. The Agency must also ensure that their helpline is fully staffed and operational so that grant beneficiaries unable to use the SASSA website can be directed to their helpline and not their overburdened offices.
SASSA is mandated to serve South Africa’s poorest and most vulnerable and while their systems must be made safe and secure and fraud rooted out, they must do so while ensuring legitimate grant beneficiaries do not suffer.
Regards
Bridget Masango MP
DA Spokesperson on Social Development