Amanzimtoti Post Office barely coping with Sassa queues
Sassa has been encouraging its beneficiaries to renew their cards at their nearest post office.
COMPLAINTS about slow service at the Amanzimtoti Post Office by Sassa card applicants are getting louder as some beneficiaries have been spending up to 12 hours in queues waiting to be assisted.
Annette Geldenhuys was one of about 100 Sassa beneficiaries last week who were at the post office to renew their Sassa cards. These included pensioners and people living with disabilities, some of whom had arrived at 05:00, hoping to be the first in line.
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“I feel sorry for these old people. They have been sitting here since dawn, yet the line has not moved an inch. We were told the network was offline, and there was load-shedding when it came back online. What are we supposed to do?” asked Annette.
Sassa has been encouraging grant beneficiaries whose cards expired at the end of March to apply for new ones at their nearest post office or Sassa office to continue drawing their grants. There have been more complaints that the nearby toilets have remained closed, and the people have had nowhere to relieve themselves.
Questions sent to the post office communications department had been unanswered at the time of publication.
The South African Post Office has been experiencing financial problems which have led it to be placed under provisional liquidation at the beginning of April.
In January, it announced that it was planning to reduce working hours and retrench staff to cut costs.
Earlier this year, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said R2.4b was to be provided to the South African Post Office to help implement a turnaround plan.
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