Sassa
WC Sassa given until end of week to give feedback on disability grant backlog
It seems the agency has missed its own 31 March deadline to ease the log jam.
Social Development MEC Sharna Fernandez met with SASSA on Monday about the nearly 53,000 grants that were suspended at the end of December.
The Western Cape Community Safety Department said it’s awaiting Ipid's report on the police deployment that led to the use of a water canon on Sassa grants applicants.
Standing committee chairperson Gillion Bosman said the last report by Sassa indicated that as of 23 March, it still had just over 10 000 applications to process in the province.
A sharp increase in the number of social grant recipients after the introduction of the special grant during the pandemic has exacerbated the strained grant payment system.
A WhatsApp message was making its rounds saying that more than 3 million South Africans would receive a R3,500 COVID-19 grant for six months.
MEC Sharna Fernandez said by 24 February, the social security agency managed to process 16,569 applications, which left a further 31,000 still in limbo.
The league told journalists during a media briefing earlier on Friday that Dlamini took its national executive committee into confidence giving details behind the saga, which it described as cheap politics.
Earlier this month, President Cyril Ramaphosa extended the grant by three more months, with many people relying on this money to survive without an income as a result of the pandemic.
Last month, police used water cannons against disability grant applicants in an effort to separate people and to adhere to safety protocols.
The temporary grants for beneficiaries expired at the end of 2020, and applicants had to reapply for their grants.
During his state of the nation address this week, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the R350 grant would be extended for three months.
Earlier this week, the boys were playing along the N2 highway when tragedy struck.
People, among them senior citizens who'd been queuing Outside Social Security Agency offices in January, were left drenched.
Public Order Police members were deployed to manage a crowd at the Bellville Sassa offices last month using a water cannon on elderly and disabled recipients.
Over the past few weeks, thousands of people have been queuing outside of Sassa offices to renew their temporary disability grants.
Sassa officials told Parliament they expect all the medical assessments to be completed by the end of March, after bringing more doctors on board to conduct them.
Lindiwe Zulu and Sassa officials briefed the committee after being called to account for the lengthy queues and violent incidents that unfolded at the agency’s offices this past week.
Police used water cannon to enforce social distancing by elderly and disabled grant recipients outside Sassa’s Bellville offices in the Western Cape on Friday while one person died while queueing in Durban.