Social Development

1. a) As per a presentation by Postbank (attached) to the WCPP Standing Committee on Social Development on 2 March 2025, there are 322 919 Customers in the original SASSA dataset provided in August 2024 that have SASSA Gold Cards. It must be noted that SASSA is a national entity and does not fall under the powers of the Western Cape Government. SASSA will thus be best placed to provide updated information.

b) Besides bank accounts, SASSA grant beneficiaries can collect money at various retailers such as Shoprite and Pick n Pay, as well as designated South African Post Offices. It must be noted that SASSA is a national entity and does not fall under the powers of the Western Cape Government. SASSA will thus be best placed to provide updated information.

c) i) Vulnerable residents like the elderly and those with disabilities have fewer options for the withdrawal of grant funds, causing unnecessary anxiety, stress, and a delay in getting much-needed money for essentials like food and medication.

ii) We do not have this information as our focus – based on the myriad of complaints and queries we’ve received and heard on the ground – has been focused on the problematic card migration process.  We have been flagging issues that range from lines not working, sites not operational, long queues and the general lack of adequate service points amongst other issues with SASSA and the Postbank.  These are national entities, so feedback was not forthcoming, and communication channels had to be opened to try and obtain up to date information and report faults.

d) As stated above, our focus over the last couple of weeks has been to apply pressure on SASSA and Postbank to urgently address the many problems surrounding the migration of SASSA Gold Cards to Postbank Black Cards.

e) SASSA is a national entity and does not fall under the powers of the Western Cape Government. This information will thus have to be retrieved from SASSA as we do not have it.

2) In the wake of SASSA and Postbank’s announcement on 07 February 2025, my office has been continuously applying pressure and raising concerns about the myriad of problems surrounding the card migration process. One of our biggest concerns was the lack of Postbank service points in rural areas.

The Western Cape Department of Social Development – and my office in particular – has been inundated with queries and complaints from the public about this process. Although SASSA and Postbank are national entities and do not fall under the power of the Western Cape Government, I have made it my mission to continue applying pressure on the powers that be to ensure the many problems around the replacement of SASSA Gold Cards are addressed with urgency.

Currently, the Western Cape’s grant beneficiaries make up roughly 11% of total SASSA customers in the country, but the province was only allocated 7% of the Postbank service points. This limitation has a compound effect on the number of customers that still need to migrate to the new PostBank card, resulting in 12% of the national outstanding card migrations existing in the Western Cape, above the national average, and which will inevitably increase unless the number of sites is drastically increased. This means on average Western Cape service points were expected to handle almost 24 000 beneficiaries per site whilst the national average was around 8500.

To this end, we have had raised the issue of the Western Cape not receiving its fair share of service points in various high-level meetings. At a MINMEC meeting with National Minister Nokuzola Tolashe on 21 February 2025, I raised the various issues with her and the Minister agreed that urgent solutions must be found. She also made a commitment to meet with me as soon as possible.

I also met with Postbank management on 3 March 2025. It was a constructive meeting in which I spoke candidly about the myriad issues around this process.

We are pleased with Postbank’s willingness to engage with us, and we now have a better understanding of the problems they face, the biggest of which is resourcing. Postbank says it has had trouble in retaining staff to work the service points. There have also been challenges around staff being threatened or robbed in certain areas, which resulted in them resigning and leaving those sites inactive.

We made it clear that many of these problems could have been prevented if there had been collaboration between SASSA, Postbank, and other role-players. We have committed to assisting Postbank however we can, such as referrals of staff for its service points and communicating with the public and municipalities on the service points that are operational. We also asked for a schedule of its roving teams so that we can communicate this.

As I told Postbank, its communication has been ineffective and it will need to step up and improve this significantly. We will assist where we can because our commitment is to the residents, especially the most vulnerable, of this province. Although they are national entities, we want to work with both SASSA and Postbank to ensure no beneficiary is left behind. We will endeavour to work together wherever we can. We will also continue to closely monitor the roll-out of the additional Postbank card replacement sites.(52)