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It’s been four days of queuing for many South Africans who have been unable to access their social grants after getting to the ATMs and finding no money in their cards.
The elderly, sick, and desperate have been queuing at ATMs, shops and Social Security Agency offices across the country because their money had not been transferred into their bank accounts on the first of the month.
Young mothers joined the queue while breastfeeding their babies.
The affected beneficiaries included pensioners, and those receiving child-support and dependant grants and foster-child carers.
Thousands of people complained that they were not able to withdraw their money at designated pay points with their new cards since Sunday.
The beneficiaries said they were still confused about which card to use.
The old cards issued by former grants payment company Cash Paymaster Services would be fully phased out by September 30, and had been replaced by a new, gold card issued by the South African Post Office’s PostBank.
“The last time I went I found a balance of R2 in this card (showing City Press the old card),” said Elizabeth Mthukwane (38) who had come to fetch the child-care grant for two of her children.
“I also heard from another lady that she got there and only found half of the grant reflecting in her card. This whole thing is a mess,” she added, while standing in a queue in Vosloorus with many pensioners and young mothers who said they had been coming to queue since Sunday.
“What is being experienced is a result of a process of changing from an old to a new payment system for social grants. We are also in a process of phasing out Cash Paymaster Services as directed by the Constitutional Court and introducing the South African Post Office to pay social grants,” explained the South African Social Security Agency’s acting chief executive Abraham Mahlangu,
He confirmed that the social grants would be paid in full, and asked beneficiaries to wait at least three days to withdraw their grants.
City Press spoke to beneficiaries who spent the whole day awaiting their turn to be helped at the agency’s offices in Vosloorus.
Twenty-four-year-old Nokwanele Mtulueni from Extension 28 in Vosloorus arrived in the morning with her mother and two-month-old baby. She told City Press about her frustration with the little help she and the other beneficiaries have managed to get from the agency.
“Many of us have been coming back and forth here. This is day four for me and today I came with my mum and newborn baby. I have two kids – one who is at school. My mum told me to come get money for her so we can pay the school fees and buy food for her to take to school.”
She said she still had to pay fees for her kids and worried about the money she owed the crèche.
While she was speaking to City Press, another frustrated mother interjected: “I was listening to the radio and I heard them talk about giving us food packages should the money issue not be resolved. Tell me what are we going to do with packages.
“Some of us came here and borrowed money from people to come. Others are old and suffer from diabetes and it’s bad. Things are bad here.
“You wait the whole day and are likely to go home having not received help. Around quarter to four they start packing up and are ready to go home having not assisted you, so whether you come early in the morning before offices open or you come later, it’s the same.”
Mtulueni arrived at 6am and at about 4pm she told City Press she was able to speak to a consultant.
“They now have told me that the money won’t reflect on this old card but would reflect on the new card. I have been coming here this whole week and no one told me that this was the case. Instead before I got to the front I would be told to come back tomorrow. I have not received help and they said tomorrow I must fill in forms for the new card and I will be given a card and can go to any bank to withdraw it.”
Another beneficiary who was in the queue and asked to remain anonymous told City Press: “I am a vendor who sells fruits and vegetables but today I closed shop because I had to help Gogo with the queues. We have been here since 5am this morning. I hired a car for us to travel. After a while she got too tired and I called the transport to go back home because you spend the whole day here. I borrowed money to come here and can’t afford to spend another day here.”
Mahlangu updated Parliament’s portfolio committee on social development on Wednesday on how the agency was dealing with the latest crisis.
He said the agency had a “full handle on the matter”.
