It was a gloomy festive season for some social grant recipients who were not able to access their funds. This comes after payments were suspended due to external security challenges.
It has been a norm for the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) to schedule and administer social grants in the first week of the month.
In the previous year, there had been instances of social grants not being accessible as per the Sassa schedule and recipients of various grants being frustrated by this, as some of them solely depend on the government’s financial assistance.
This was the case in the recent festive season, when the Postbank had to suspend social grant payments from being withdrawn from ATMs.
According to Postbank spokesperson, Dr. Bongani Diako, Postbank has redirected beneficiaries to retail outlets to make withdrawals of their grant payment funds for December, whilst Postbank had forensic investigation to find the culprits behind this. In an interview, Diako said:
Postbank apologises to the affected clients and the system is running smoothly.Â
Civil society group #PayTheGrants, Project Manager, Elizabeth Raiters also shared in November 2022, recipients of the Child Support Grant found that there was no money in their accounts when they tried to withdraw funds and some of them were even told that their money had already been withdrawn.
This was followed by the affected grant recipients filling out forms through the government agency.
Diako has also confirmed that Postbank had picked up suspicious activity in their cyber security system and intermittently payments were affected by this.
This has been a frustrating period for the individuals that have been at the receiving end, especially as some of them experienced this as they were making necessary preparations for the reopening of the school year.
Some lobby groups have also sounded the alarm on the unpaid funds of the Sassa grant beneficiaries and continue with calls for the introduction of a Basic Income Grant to offset the inflation-induced cost of basic necessities to beneficiaries.
