2025 SASSA social grant review underway
The 2025 SASSA social grant system has been in a state of flux all year. First, we had the Finance Minister missing the February budget deadline. And this led to a delay in announcement of 2025 SASSA social grant increases.
At the same time, you had the department wrestling with a High Court Ruling to review the 2025 SASSA social grant system for SRD clients. And the on-going Postbank Black Card debacle that was never fully resolved, after causing untold misery for the elderly and disabled … No group suffered more than elderly grant recipients during the Postbank Gold-to-Black Card farce. Image: File
Now, however, the South African Social Security Agency has begun a review of the 2025 SASSA social grant payment system. The goal herein is to fix long-running problems. 'Core' SASSA grants are disbursed to more than 28-million beneficiaries every month.
Specifically, the 2025 SASSA social grant review will re-examine the Master and Service Level Agreements between SASSA, the SA Post Office (SAPO) and Postbank. Since 2018, this agreement has guided SASSA grant payments. However, it is abundantly clear that after SAPO's financial collapse, and Postbank took over in 2022, their problems have only worsened. SAPO-POSTBANK COLLAPSE Any SASSA client who hadn't opted to be paid into a conventional bank account, soon changed their payment option after the Postbank card debacle. Image: File
Better still, the project is being headed up by the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME), rather than SASSA. The department head says the 2025 SASSA social grant review will be completed before the year is through. In turn, the department will examine what caused the breakdown between SASSA and Postbank. And it will suggest ways to make the SASSA grant payment system better.
Recurring problems, such as 'network challenges' and 'system glitches' are often attributed to the failures. However, the 2025 SASSA social grant review goes further. It will look at Postbank's failure to provide access to chairs, water, and toilets to beneficiaries waiting in queues at branches. As such, the review wants to hear the viewpoints of affected beneficiaries themselves. And civil society groups had until Friday (23 May 2025) to comment and nominate representatives for the project's steering committee.
In time, the goal is for an improvement plan to be tabled, and a progress report produced every six months for the next two years. Civil advocacy groups have welcomed the review into 2025 SASSA social grant payments. They're happy that problems between SASSA and Postbank are 'finally being acknowledged.' DO YOU THINK SASSA SHOULD FORMALLY CUT TIES WITH POSTBANK?
Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1.
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