The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) has called for permanent grant recipients to make alternative arrangements when collecting their money. This is due to the system glitch at pay points, which is preventing the payment of grants.
Sassa distributes around 18 million permanent social grants monthly. These permanent grants include the Older Persons Grant, Disability Grant, Child Support grant, Foster Care Grant, Grant in Aid, War Veterans Grant, and the Care Dependency grant.
Permanent grants are distributed during the first week of every month. Many of the people who benefit from these grants collect them at a South African Post Office (SAPO) branch.
However, they will not be able to collect their grants at a Post Office this week as Sapo has encountered system glitches.
The agency explains that grant recipients who have Sassa gold cards can collect their money at retailers and ATMs. The retail outlets are Shoprite, Checkers, Usave, Pick n Pay, and Boxer.
Sassa grants recipients are advised to collect money at retailers and ATMs due to system glitches at Post Office outlets today
Sassa Grants recipients can also use the Sasssa gold cards to make purchases at any place that accepts bank card transactions as the SASSA gold cards function fully within the national payments system similarly to any other bank card,” added the agency.
The Post Bank has apologised to all social grant beneficiaries for the inconvenience the technical glitches are causing and will notify the public when the glitches have been resolved.
Sassa spokesperson Paseka Letsatsi says the issues causing the system glitches have already been identified. However, they will meet with the management team on Friday to determine when they will start paying grants.
Letsatsi added that Sassa will take extra measures to ensure grant recipients can access their money. This as it would be unreasonable to expect recipients to spend the entire weekend without this financial relief.
