sapo srd grant 2024-2025

sapo srd grant 2024-2025

This page has information on sapo srd grant 2024-2025.

• The difficulties SAPO is currently having in providing services to grant beneficiaries affect more than 900 000 people. Even though this may only apply to 5% of recipients of social grants, it is still unacceptable. According to SASSA, at least 500 000 people receive their grants from SAPO branches, and 150 000 may have their mobile cash pay points shut down, forcing them to quickly find alternative payment options.
• It is disgusting that the Department of Social Development (DSD) argues that the fact that only some beneficiaries are impacted somehow justifies the action. These are the elderly and those with disabilities who continue to use SAPO branches as their primary method of obtaining their grants, a choice that is legally theirs under SASSA regulations.
• The Department of Social Development (DSD) informs the Portfolio Committee on Social Development that it is actively working to make sure SASSA cards are active. Despite the fact that using banks comes at an additional cost to the beneficiary, SASSA representatives are on-site at SAPO pay points urging beneficiaries to switch to banks as a way to avoid complications if SAPO is unable to facilitate payments. Since the closure of many SASSA community pay points, beneficiaries including the elderly and the disabled have had to bear the burden of looking for alternative payment channels, which has caused fear and anxiety.
• DSD acknowledges that the capacity of SAPO is inextricably linked to its ability to provide services over the long term. Regular cash shortages, nonpayment of employees and service providers, strikes, and a declining SAPO footprint have all affected the entity. They also suffered from the services being cut off without giving the DSD and beneficiaries enough notice. Beneficiaries’ experiences have been adversely affected by fraud, subpar service delivery, security, transportation, time management, and equipment problems.
• These difficulties are nothing new. Since the Social Distress Relief (SRD) was introduced by DSD and SASSA, the Black Sash has voiced its concerns. The grant beneficiaries are left to bear the brunt of SAPO’s inefficiencies because no significant efforts have been made to address these problems.
• Because of the May cash shortage, there was a lot of uncertainty regarding whether SAPO would pay social grants for the June cycle. Conflicting information about whether media reports discussed the SRD grant or other grants, as well as last-minute requests for beneficiaries to use alternative payment methods like banks and retailers. Although SAPO assured everyone that social grant payments would proceed without incident, the reality on the ground was very different.
• Although the first payments were supposed to be processed on June 2, 2022, the majority of SAPO branches were unable to do so. They had connectivity problems, which prevented them from facilitating biometric authentication. These difficulties were observed by community monitoring partners and Black Sash. Local offices in various provinces, including the Pietermaritzburg Main SAPO, the Howick SAPO in KwaZulu Natal, and the Kariega SAPO branch in the Eastern Cape, reported additional delays.
• Beneficiaries were forced to leave and look for alternative payment methods or return the following day as a result of delays in the arrival of cash and subsequent shortages. In Limpopo and the Eastern Cape, this was observed.
• Numerous SAPO branches’ safety and security have alarmingly declined, endangering grant recipients, especially women, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Due to the SAPO’s deteriorating financial situation, there are insufficient security measures in place on both sides.
• The Standerton Post Office in Mpumalanga was robbed on June 2; as a result, payments on June 2 and 3 were suspended because the location was a crime scene. Due to their morbid fear of technology and inability to recall their PIN numbers, many beneficiaries were forced to wait until they returned on June 6 in order to access their payments.
• Black Sash and its community partner, KwaMakutha Community Resource Center, were keeping watch at the Amanzimtoti SAPO in Kwa-Zulu Natal when they witnessed a fatal hijacking that endangered the security of grant recipients. The high number of robberies that the SAPO branch had personally experienced forced them to stop giving grants.
• Law requires SASSA and SAPO to offer social grants in accordance with their own Norms and Standards. Both SASSA and SAPO are falling short of acceptable standards of service delivery due to the deteriorating state of SAPO across the nation and the effect this is having on the most vulnerable members of our society.