Note to editors: Please find attached a soundbite in English by Bridget Masango MP.
The DA calls on the Minister for Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu, and the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) CEO, Busisiwe Memela-Khambula, to issue an urgent stay of discontinuation of South African Post Office (SAPO) pay points for two months, while they engage with smaller retailers in rural communities to facilitate grant payments.
The DA has been inundated by messages from panicked and stressed grant recipients who fear they might not receive their grants this month as many of the big retailers on SASSA’s list have no footprint in their towns. SASSA must urgently reach out smaller retailers and ensure that recipients can also access their grants – especially in rural areas.
SASSA and the Department of Social Development (DSD) must also launch a targeted communication drive to remote and rural areas where many people might not have ready access to mainstream media, and the distribution of second-hand information cause chaos and panic.
Minister Zulu must also account to the parliamentary portfolio committee on social development regarding the reasons for these drastic, insensitive decisions and their implications on the DSD budget and the poor and vulnerable whose lives have been heavily inconvenienced.
Poor and vulnerable South Africans are routinely sent from pillar to post to gain access to their grants without which they are unable to provide for their families. In South Africa’s increasingly hostile economic environment, it is inhumane to spring the closure of familiar pay points on grant recipients who already worry every month that they won’t make ends meet.