Cape Town - Social grant recipients have until the end of this month to swop their old SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) cards for the new Sassa gold card.
The card swop programme started in May and Sassa said last week
that more than 200000 grant recipients still needed to exchange their cards.
The SA Post Office (Sapo) is scheduled to take over the payment of grants from October 1 and Sassa is in the process of phasing out the payment role of Cash Paymaster Services (CPS).
In June, “system glitches” delayed payment to many beneficiaries in the Western Cape for days.
Sassa national spokesperson Kgomoco Diseko said Sapo “has participated in a pilot project meant to make it ready for taking over (the payment) function”.
Diseko said beneficiaries could receive the gold card at Sassa offices or from their local post offices.
“To receive grants next month, they needed to have the gold card or have made “arrangements to receive their grants in their private bank accounts”.
Western Cape Sassa spokesperson Shivani Wahab said the migration from CPS to Sapo “has been slightly challenging as there were technical challenges experienced with the system”.
“We are, however, pleased to announce that despite the challenges the new Sassa/Sapo card is being rolled out nationally.”
Wahab warned grant recipients not to be “duped into applying for the green Easy Pay Card”.
“This is not a Sassa card and therefore is not endorsed by Sassa. The Easy Pay Card is a financial loan card affiliated to our (outgoing) service provider, CPS.”
Meanwhile, Vernon Hendricks, chairperson of the Western Cape Older Person’s Forum, said: “We have received a few reports of people not being paid due to the new card not being able to register on the system, but the problem was sorted.
“We accept that (Sapo) might experience some teething problems at the start, but we are also glad that it is a South African organisation that provides the service.”