The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) released a statement calling on R350 grant beneficiaries who do not own smartphones to choose the EFT payment method.
This announcement comes in the wake of Sassa’s customer care unit in Mpumalanga receiving complaints of being unable to process R350 grant payments.
The agency explained that the delays in EFT payments are due to some cell phones having extremely limited computing or internet capacity. Beneficiaries of the grant are being advised to choose an alternative payment method.
Sassa explained, “The Agency is putting a caution to beneficiaries to choose a suitable method of payment to avoid any inconvenience. All the applicable methods of payments can be accessed on the Sassa official website”.
R350 grant beneficiaries can choose to collect their grants at selected supermarkets and financial institutions. These supermarkets include Shoprite, Checkers, Pick N Pay and Boxer stores.
The announcement from Sasssa has garnered criticism from stakeholders who labelled it exclusionary. This as grant applicants are required to apply for the grant online.
Democratic Alliance (DA) Member of Parliament and social development representative Bridget Masango says Sassa should have thought about this accessibility issue before making the application process for the grant exclusively online.
They said, “You cannot introduce an online-only application process and not ensure that all the Ts are crossed and i's are dotted for the people that may not even have their own cell phone, they will go and ask someone else to assist them to apply for this grant.”
Several other factors have also resulted in R350 grant payment delays. According to Sassa these delays are due to beneficiaries constantly changing their banking details.
The agency said if applicants change their banking details, Sassa is required to run an additional verification check with banks to check if an applicant exceeds the grant income threshold. This ultimately delays the payment of crucial relief mechanisms.
Beneficiaries were also cautioned against asking for assistance from strangers when applying for the R350 grant. This as strangers could use the grant applicants' personal details for fraudulent activities.
