Last week, I voiced my frustration at Sassa for only paying out 10 people with the R350 Covid-19 social relief distress grants by 22 May.
Some people found the story so hard to believe, that they even questioned how true it was.
Since then many people have added their voices in frustration, for not even knowing the status of their application.
Sassa recently released a statement which in part read: “It was important for Sassa to only start paying out this grant after tight systems have been established and tested to avoid wasteful expenditure and fraud.
“It has not been as easy as it has been made out to be in media circles due to the dependencies along the value chain.
“The mammoth task of ensuring that the correct and deserving individuals are paid has started in earnest.
“This process involved intense negotiations with institutions in the value chain and this unfortunately accounted for the delays that were encountered.
“These delays proved to be worth it, given the number of applicants that could be excluded during the process as they are either in receipt of social grants or UIF - two factors which expressly disqualify applicants from receiving this grant.”
Sassa CEO Totsie Memela however extended an unreserved apology to those inconvenienced by the slower than expected process: “We received just under 5 million applications for this new grant and we had to compare information provided by applicants with other government and private databases to ensure that people with an income and recipients of other social grants are not included in these applications.
“In addition, we had to remove duplicated and incomplete applications which account for nearly 50% of all applications received.”
She reminded mense that no applications for the special Covid-19 relief grant will be taken at Sassa offices because only electronic applications are accepted.
“In order to comply with the restrictions on services during level 4 of the lockdown, Sassa local offices have specific dates on which they attend to selected grants.
“On Mondays and Tuesdays, local offices strictly attend to applications for old age grants. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, local offices strictly attend to applications for child support grants and foster child grants.
“Fridays are reserved for admin purposes as well as to deal with referred cases from previous days.”
I would like to believe that they are busy getting their act together and that those staring hunger in the face will receive some relief soon.
We are in Level 3 of lockdown now, which means more, if not all, of Sassa staff are back at work, so the processing and payment of these grants should go a lot quicker now.
Thankfully, something that does now work with this process is the ability to check up on the status of your application.
APPLICATION: People flocked to Sassa offices last week
On Friday, Sassa announced that you can visit srd.sassa.gov.za/sc19/status.
You will have to punch in your ID number and the telephone number that you used to apply with, and you will get a response.
There is no OTP system in place like when you apply, so you can check anyone’s status if you have their ID number and the telephone number they used to apply.
Other important notices from Sassa recently has been the dates of the grant payouts for June 2020.
The Old Age & Disability grants will be paid out tomorrow and Thursday (3 and 4 June).
All other grants will be available from Friday, 5 June.
Sassa has pointed out that your money is safe if left on the card, and have given the following tips to grant recipients:
For your own safety, avoid large groups of people - wait for quiet times to access cash.
Do not withdraw all your cash at once - use your card to purchase goods and only get cash for your immediate needs.
Your money is safe if you leave it on your card. Use this as you require it - not all at once.