SASSA has reassured social grants beneficiaries that they will not be impacted by Postbank’s decision to discontinue certain services at Post Office. Image: File
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South Africa
SASSA assures beneficiaries grants unaffected by Postbank service changes
SASSA says grant payments will proceed as normal this week, despite Postbank discontinuing some services at Post Office branches.
The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) has reassured social grants beneficiaries that they will not be impacted by Postbank’s decision to discontinue certain services at Post Office branches nationwide.
With the May payment cycle set to begin this week, Chief Executive Officer, Themba Matlou, confirmed that all systems are in place to ensure smooth payments to eligible beneficiaries. He stressed that the revised working arrangement between Postbank and the Post Office should not cause concern.
“As per the norm in our payment system, on Tuesday, we are starting with Older Persons followed by Disability on Wednesday, and then we round off with Children’s grant. We then implement what we call the 4th payment day which may be some beneficiaries who may not receive their grants on their usual dates due to our stringent social grant reviews processes”, said CEO Matlou.
Matlou added that SASSA remains committed to ensuring that no deserving beneficiary is negatively affected by administrative changes within the agency or its partner institutions.
“The way our systems work currently, they are intended to safeguard the interests of our important beneficiaries to ensure that they do not bear the brunt should there be any changes in working arrangements that we have with our partners”, he emphasised.
He further outlined that SASSA is advancing several initiatives aimed at strengthening the integrity of its systems to ensure efficient and secure distribution of social grants.
“We are deliberate in our attempts to improve how SASSA works, to the betterment of service provision to our people. Moreso, to ensure that our systems are not susceptible to fraudulent elements inside and outside of our organisation”, he stressed.
Matlou also highlighted that the agency continues to conduct social grant reviews to verify beneficiary eligibility. He noted that the recently introduced self-service online portal, eLife Certification, is improving access and allowing beneficiaries to verify their status remotely.
“We call on our beneficiaries to head the call when we ask them to undergo a social grant review process by coming to their nearest offices. On eLife Certification, we call on those with means to do them online, not to come to our offices as it is a self-service”, he said.
