Post Office Receives Penalty For Failing Sassa Clients

After being used to pay social grants, the South African Post Office’s contract expired last year. Aside from the contract ending, the post office now faces the consequences of failing to deliver services.

Post Office Receives Penalty For Failing Sassa Clients

Under a contract between the South African Post Office and the agency that administers social grants, payments of social grants must be made in a seamless manner.

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To ensure that the payment schedule of social grants returns to normal, this contractual agreement has come to an end.

After the Post Bank took over from the Post Office, grant beneficiaries were encouraged to withdraw their funds from retailers and ATMs.As the availability of funds during this period was negatively impacted, Brenton van Vrede, Sassa’s Executive Manager of Grants Administration, said:

The Post Office was penalised 5% of their invoice for failing to provide dignity services during the affected months. 

During the current financial year, this invoice was applied between April 2022 and September 2022.Moreover, van Vrede has pointed out that Sapo did not adhere to the payment schedule of Sassa and failed to provide adequate equipment.

A service fee is also paid by the Agency for the disbursement of social grants, and it is as follows:

• Cash Pay Point  : R188.81 per beneficiary
• SAPO branches : R72.95 per beneficiary 
• National Payment System : R7.14 per beneficiary 

There were, however, other issues that arose during this transition, such as connectivity and cyber security.During the festive season, the Postbank detected unusual and suspicious activity on its system.

It is common for social grant recipients to complain about not having access to their grant funds when they call or send messages to the Department of Social Development.

Lindiwe Zulu, Minister of Social Development, has since raised concerns with Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, Minister of Communications and Digital Technology.Postbank executive Neo Moja recently said there weren’t many inconveniences during the January 2023 social grant payment cycle, and the bank will maintain the momentum.