Social Development
(1) Whether her Department has any comment on the (a) current hours, (b) facilities and/or venues being used and (c) accessibility of Sassa’s service at this time; if so, what are the relevant details;
(2) whether her Department is complementing or supplementing Sassa’s operations; if so, what are the relevant details?
(1) (a) The Department would like to see SASSA consider whether extension of its current office hours would be possible to reduce queuing.
(b) The Department welcomes the City of Cape Town’s agreement with SASSA to make more service points available in certain communities to reduce queuing at SASSA’s main offices. We would encourage similar arrangements in other parts of the province, particularly in the West Coast, where access to SASSA is a challenge due to distances and the closure of the Vredenburg office. SASSA has also undertaken to stagger pay days from August onward to reduce queuing at pay-points and in the shops following payments (c) DSD is concerned about the relatively slow pace of COVID 19 grant payments in the province and low numbers of approved payments in the Western Cape compared to other provinces. There also appear to be system problems with the COVID 19 grant adjudication process which have led to some applicants being rejected even though they have not received any other form of income or grant. SASSA has advised that it is introducing an appeals process for unsuccessful applicants in an effort to address some of these shortcomings.
(2) The Department of Social Development’s social workers work closely with SASSA on the processing of foster care grants and social relief of distress applications. The Department has also been providing information to the public on the SASSA COVID 19 Grant application process.
