MEC Sharna Fernandez meets with SASSA

Western Cape Minister of Social Development Sharna Fernandez has met with SASSA’s provincial management today (07 February 2024) to discuss various pertinent issues.

At the top of the agenda was the prolonged power outages in parts of the Central Karoo. SASSA has started working on getting water to its local offices in affected areas for beneficiaries and staff.

The provincial Department of Social Development (DSD) will work with SASSA to ensure that the agency activates the Social Relief of Distress (SRD), which will require assessments being conducted in households to determine who is most in need of assistance.

Simultaneously, the Department is busy with the emergency procurement of food parcels.

“I visited Prince Albert a few days ago and the heat was unbearable, reaching highs of over 40 degrees Celsius. I heard from residents who are dependent on SASSA grants that perishable food like meat has gone off as a result of the power outage. These are people who have budgeted to buy groceries that have to stretch for as long as possible, and this has now gone to waste. We have vulnerable residents dealing with extreme weather conditions and limited food sources,” says Provincial Minister Fernandez.

Furthermore, other concerns and challenges were raised with SASSA, related to complaints provincial DSD regularly receives from beneficiaries, such as poor service at local SASSA offices, ineffectual call centre numbers, and a slow online system.

SASSA says it has made progress in several service delivery areas, including its community outreach programmes, centralising its call centre platform, and modernising processes to mitigate long queues.

“I applaud SASSA’s provincial management for their transparency and willingness to work with us. However, we have seen the reality of beneficiaries on the ground, where they are still met with terrible attitudes of staff at certain SASSA offices, extremely long queues, and an online system that takes months to provide results of grant applications. We are also concerned about whether there is sufficient communication around the discontinuation of cash withdrawals at Cash Pay Points and Post Office branches,” added Provincial Minister Fernandez.

We will continue to monitor SASSA’s efforts, holding them accountable where necessary.

“I’ve said this before, my gripe is not with the provincial management of SASSA, but with national government. It is their top-down decision-making that has led to an agency that is riddled with problems. We need them to display leadership and focus on millions of grant beneficiaries who deserve quality service delivery.”