SASSA CEO Says Level 3 Lockdown Enables Faster Payment of COVID-19 Grants

The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) says a move to level 3 lockdown, which will commence from 1 June 2020, will enable the agency to accelerate the pace of paying out the COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress grant.

“At the moment SASSA is operating with a third of its staff during level 4 and a move to level 3 will increase human resource capacity drastically so that payments are made quicker than it is the case currently,” said SASSA CEO Totsie Memela.

Memela said that much progress has been made in preparing for the payment of large numbers of the COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress grants.

He said SASSA started using WhatsApp for applications but had to move to other platforms including website and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD).

This follows the WhatsApp system, which was flooded with unprecedented numbers of applications per hour, which it struggled to cope with.

“The situation was also further challenged by the fact that applicants tried to upload supporting documents through the various platforms, despite this not being necessary. All these application channels have been stabilised and the application process is now significantly smoother,” Memela said.

After increasing the capacity of the application channels, Memela said, SASSA moved swiftly to testing the payment side of its system, where a sample of 10 beneficiaries was used to test the efficacy of the payment mechanism and nine were successfully paid.

“One applicant had captured his banking details incorrectly [and] this has since been corrected. This payment test should be seen for what it is,” Memela noted.

Under five million applications received

Memela said that just under five million applications have been received, and this includes duplications, incomplete and invalid applications.

He said that some applicants were sent messages to provide banking details and they were requested to respond quickly so that they can be paid before month-end.

He extended an unreserved apology to those inconvenienced by the slower than expected process.

“We received just under five million applications for this new grant and we had to compare information provided by applicants with other government and private databases to ensure that people with an income and recipients of other social grants are not included in these applications.

“In addition, we had to remove duplicated and incomplete applications which account for nearly 50% of all applications received. Up to now, we have eliminated a number of undeserving applicants and this has saved the Fiscus close to R14 million which could have sky-rocketed to over R81 million by October,” Memela said.

As soon as the vetting of applications is completed, the payments will start rolling in at an even faster pace, he added.

Unbanked applicants will be paid through money sent using an ATM of their choice.

SASSA will finalise contracting for this facility with the banks today [Monday] so that such payments can be made this week. Beneficiaries can also open accounts at their nearest post office.

No applications taken at SASSA offices

Citizens are reminded that no applications for the special COVID-19 relief grant will be taken at SASSA offices because only electronic applications are accepted.

In order to comply with the restrictions on services during level 4 of the lockdown, SASSA local offices have specific dates on which they attend to selected grants.

On Mondays and Tuesdays, local offices strictly attend to applications for Old Age Grants, and on Wednesdays and Thursday’s local offices strictly attend to applications for Child Support Grants and foster child grants.

Fridays are reserved for administration purposes, as well as to deal with referred cases from previous days. – SAnews.gov.za