Post Office delivers on grant deal
The Post Office paid more than 5m SASSA grant recipients in September.
CONFIDENT about a smooth takeover of social grants payments on 30 September, the South African Post Office COO, Lindiwe Kwele, says, “the partnership between SAPO and SASSA benefits millions of social grants beneficiaries, as they are now freed from practices such as unwanted deductions.”
To date, the Post Office has paid 97 per cent of the 5,4 million social grant recipients who use the new gold SASSA card. Payment is still ongoing at SASSA cash pay-points in line with the payment schedules. Further, the Post Office said 76 per cent of the August grants payments were finalised in the first week of September. The August payment run is SAPO’s third since the state-led agreement with SASSA was concluded in December 2017.
“The almost-equal split between ATM and POS transactions, coupled with the in-branch transaction volumes, shows that grant recipients are using all the available channels. This behaviour is earlier than expected,” added Kwele.
ALSO READ: Post Office issues over one million new SASSA cards
The Post Office is now in its final week of cash payments to just over 300 000 social grants recipients at 1213 payment points. These are in areas that do not have a post office within reach, or any national payment infrastructure points. Over 200 000 of social grants recipients in these isolated areas have already been successfully paid via SAPO’s mobile units with the remainder due to be paid in the next week in line with SASSA’s payment schedule.
To date, the Post Office and SASSA have issued the new gold SASSA cards to more than 6,5 million grant recipients. Social grants beneficiaries that have not changed to the new SASSA cards can do so at a SASSA office or Post Office. People that took on cards from other institutions such as the banks can also switch to the new gold SASSA card.
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