By Staff Reporter
POLOKWANE-The South African Social Security Agency says that it is working on resolving issues faced by beneficiaries in the process of renewing their Sassa Gold Cards, which they use to collect their grant payments.
Earlier in 2023, beneficiaries who make use of cards to collect their social grant distributed by the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) were advised to renew their expired Sassa Gold Cards in order to continue collecting their grant payments.
In April 2023, more than 800,000 Sassa Gold Cards reached their expiration date, leaving the beneficiaries in a state of uncertainty. The situation escalated further in May 2023, with more than 2.6 million Gold Cards expiring. A further 1.5 million Sassa gold cards are expiring in June 2023.
The demand for people getting new cards from the Post Office was too great and many beneficiaries were concerned that they would not be able to withdraw their grant money.
The South African Post Office faced some challenges which affected beneficiaries and meant that in some cases, cards which were meant to expire at the end of June 2023 had to be extended until December 2023 to allow the Post Office to sort out various issues.
The Communications General Manager of the Sassa, Paseka Letsatsi says the agency agrees that beneficiaries of social grants should not be travelling long distances in order to renew their Sassa cards.
Letsatsi says that it is very costly and beneficiaries form part of the most vulnerable sector in the country.
Sassa wants the Post Office to approach the Payment Association of South Africa (PASA) to ensure that they are given lots of time to deal with certain administrative issues such as, finding venues which are closer to its beneficiaries so that they do not have to travel long distances to renew their cards.
According to Letsatsi, the Agency is working with Postbank to make sure that issues faced by beneficiaries, such as not being able to access their grant payments, are dealt with before they get worse.
Postbank introduced a new payment solution which allows grant beneficiaries to collect their grant without a Sassa card. The Department of Social Development says that the Postbank will also continue the issuance of new Sassa Gold Cards to beneficiaries.
