Cape Town – Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu is optimistic about the improvement of the social grants payment system in South Africa after technical issues resulted in a delay of payments to 600 000 beneficiaries.
The delay was caused by an upgrade to the Postbank system, affecting elderly and disabled grant recipients for a week.
Zulu acknowledged the upgrade but did not anticipate its failure, expressing regret for the impact on people’s livelihoods.
“We are very sorry about what happened because we know people’s livelihoods depend on grants from the government. We are doing everything possible not to find ourselves in a situation wherein our systems experience a glitch.
[Watch Live] Ministers Lindiwe Zulu and Mondli Gungubele brief media on delayed SASSA payments https://t.co/l3Tn7p7xxc
— South African Government (@GovernmentZA) September 14, 2023
“The systems we use are complicated and we are always on the lookout for a system failure. With this one, we did not expect the system would experience a problem. It is a new system,” she said while briefing the media on Thursday.
As of Thursday, Postbank had completed over 500 000 payments, with around 100 000 beneficiaries still awaiting theirs.
In response to complaints from individuals who had to take out loans or incur travel expenses to check on their payments, Zulu could not guarantee reimbursement, citing budget constraints and the department’s focus on delivering social grants.
The matter of reimbursement would require budget consideration and could not be decided on the spot, she said.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
