Download PDFThe South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), responsible for administering and paying social grants to eligible beneficiaries, is migrating to Postbank. The process, which started in September 2024, is finally nearing completion. Currently, there are different types of beneficiaries and grants. These include grants for elderly people, those living with disabilities, the Child Support Grant, grants for war veterans, the Care Dependency Grant, the Grant-in-Aid, and the Foster Care Grant.
The number of beneficiaries each month is around 28 million.
The seven-month-long process aimed to transition social grant beneficiaries from the SASSA gold card to the Postbank black card, with the deadline originally set for 28 February 2025.
The reason for the migration was to enhance security against fraud, cloning, and system failure. The new card is expected to help avoid these problems.
Unfortunately, the migration process has not been without problems and challenges for beneficiaries, as they had to deal with long queues and slow service due to a limited number of service agents per site. The system has frequently been offline at many sites, making it a struggle to access services, as there are very few sites available, which is costly to beneficiaries in terms of money and time.
Sibongile Manana, 38, a single mother from Orange Farm, says she has returned three times to the Eyethu Service Site due to the offline system after waiting for hours in the queue.
“I was made to stand in the queue even with a disability, as I’m blind,” says Khosi Zulu from Lakeside in Evaton.
“I wake up at 4 am to walk from home to the site to ensure I will get the black card, as I don’t want my grant to be cut,” says Mam’ Francis, who stays in Tshovitsho informal settlement and had to walk to Eyethu Mall in the dark, which posed a danger to her.
Zoleka Faniso, 36, a Shoprite cashier based in Freedom Park, says she struggles to get time off from work to queue for the new card and hopes there will be an extension.
These challenges are not unique to these beneficiaries and the mentioned areas, as there are other regions, such as Cape Town, that have been flooded with challenges.
Fortunately, these challenges have not gone unnoticed by SASSA and Postbank officials, as the cut-off for the gold cards has been postponed until the end of May 2025.
The CEO of Postbank, Ms. Nikki Mbengashe, appealed to beneficiaries to take advantage of the two-month extension because, after the deadline, they will not be able to access their grants.
Briefing the media on 28 March in Pretoria, Ms. Mbengashe said, “After these two months we will not be providing alternatives for people to access their grants. We believe that we’ve stuck to the commitment to allow people to migrate to the black card. There’s now an extension for the SASSA gold card. After these two months, there will be no alternative—if you don’t have your black card, you will not be able to access your grant.”
With 1.3 million people still to migrate due to the offline system failures, let us hope all beneficiaries will be efficiently and successfully migrated by the deadline.
This article was submitted on 31 March 2025. You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and Karibu! Online (www.Karibu.org.za), and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
