Grant recipients of the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) report lengthier wait times than usual at the Soshanguve location, north of Pretoria.
People leave their houses in the dark and wait in line from daybreak till they are turned away due to system faults and loadshedding.
When GroundUp visited the office on Thursday, many individuals who had been in the serpentine line since 5 a.m. were still waiting after 1 p.m.
Multiple individuals reported making multiple attempts to obtain service at the office.
Additionally, SAPS must compensate a senior officer who was wrongfully accused of racism.
Letty Malope, 62, stated, “All I want is to submit documents so I may begin collecting my funds on my debit card… They gave me paperwork to complete and return [by standing in line again]… Why am I unable to submit and leave?”
It was Tshepiso Sithole’s third attempt to qualify for a social grant for her seven-month-old child.
She attempted for the first time in the first week of December. Each time she attempts to leave her home at 5:30 a.m., the system is down.
“The second time they kept us waiting till 2:00 p.m. with no communication… Today, the identical issue arose. This began in December, when they reported that power outages had damaged their computer cables, prompting them to switch to laptops, according to Sithole.
Ellen Slabbert, age 65, inquired about the foster care grant for her grandson. I can’t afford cab tickets for him to get to high school because we haven’t received his money yet. I borrowed R100 in order to get here.”
Nandi Mosia, a provincial spokeswoman for SASSA, responded to a question regarding the large lines and delays in receiving social grants by stating, “The majority of our employees took their leave from late December to early January.” Most will return on January 16, 2023. This indicates that we are running at capacity constraints. However, we attempt to help as many customers as possible between 7:30 and 16:00.”
According to her, the system problems were caused by loadshedding, cable theft, and persistent network unavailability.
Mosia did not specify how many recipients are gonna receive daily assistance.
»Long lineups and persistent system failures at SASSA Shoshanguve«