Postbank close to issuing 1 million cards for SASSA beneficiaries
While members of Parliament have highlighted a few glitches with the issuing of the cards, like inconsistencies in the loading of grant money, they’ve praised the bank for the sudden improvement.
Postbank has started introducing a new Black Card for SASSA beneficiaries. Picture supplied by SASSA
CAPE TOWN - The Postbank says it’s making significant progress moving grant beneficiaries from the old gold (South African Social Security Agency) SASSA cards to the bank’s new black card.
While members of Parliament have highlighted a few glitches with the issuing of the cards, like inconsistencies in the loading of grant money, they’ve praised the bank for the sudden improvement as it approaches one million cards issued.
On Wednesday, the Postbank briefed the Social Development committee on progress in implementing interventions in the card replacement crisis.
The committee said previously that grant beneficiaries were still struggling at the various sites to access their grants.
The Postbank was also accused of failing to issue enough black cards before next month’s deadline for the gold card replacement.
Postbank CEO Nikki Mbengashe says their statistics point to a big improvement after issuing over 300,000 cards in just 12 days as they approach a million cards.
“I can tell you today we are sitting with over 900,000 cards that we’ve issued to date as of Monday. So we’re very close to a million cards, which we are quite confident that by the end of this week or next week we should be hitting that million.”
Committee member Altia Hlongo applauded the improvement.
“Their presentation speaks of progress and we are happy with the progress.”
The bank says it will stop using the gold cards on 20 March 2025, but they will continue issuing new cards after the deadline.