DELAYED social grant payments have left Bay pensioners fuming after waiting months for the South African Social Security Association (SASSA) to pay their monthly funds.
This despite numerous queries by the ECHO Foundation to the SASSA provincial head office in Bhisho, who has been assisting 80 beneficiaries waiting for their social grant since August.
According to the CEO of ECHO Foundation, Ken Keen, many of these pensioners rely on their pension to pay rent and purchase food.
“ECHO Foundation has been assisting those residents in need, while endeavouring to obtain answers from the Department of Social Development and SASSA.
“To date, we have been advised that this is a national problem of non-payment.
“No one in the local office can provide answers as to why no payments have made and when this matter will be rectified and if arrear pensions will be included in the next payment,” Keen said.
The foundation, which operates in the Nelson Mandela Bay, houses more than 1 500 residents within its 10 villages, assisted living and frail care facilities.
The Algoa Bay Council for the Aged and Methodist Homes have both confirmed that many of their residents are facing the same hardships.
Keen added, “This is an unacceptable situation that senior citizens are being treated in this manner by the government. One has to wonder if government officials had not received their salaries for two months, if the matter would be taken more seriously by the authorities and action taken to rectify the matter.”
According to SASSA’s Eastern Cape spokesperson, Luzuko Qina, they have embarked on the process of verifying the bank details of the beneficiaries on their system are correct.
Qina said this was as a result of fraudulent activities wherein banking details of beneficiaries were changed from their system without the consent of beneficiaries.
He added, “Bank verification is done on a monthly basis and it is done to ensure that the details of the account holder on our system match those of the beneficiary.
“During this process, a social grant payment is withheld and beneficiaries whose payments have been withheld are required to present themselves to their nearest SASSA office with their IDs and current bank statements indicating their correct banking details in order to be assisted.”
Asked about how this affected the 80 cases of non-payment from the ECHO foundation, Qina said that they were affected by the bank verification process which has been put in place to combat fraud.
“Our customer care officials are assisting the affected beneficiaries at the centre in obtaining the required bank statements and completing the process,” Qina said.
SASSA has confirmed that the affected beneficiaries will be paid their outstanding social grants in the next payment cycle of November with effect from September.
Qina added, “SASSA wishes to apologise unreservedly for any convenience this has caused as it is the necessary step of ensuring that we curb the fraud that the agency is experiencing.”
