WATCH | Minister Zulu optimistic grant payment system will improve

Social development minister Lindiwe Zulu is confident the social grants payment system will improve. 

Last week, technical difficulties resulted in 600,000 beneficiaries not being paid on time.

South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) grants for elderly recipients and disability grants were delayed for a week due to an “upgrade” to the Postbank system.

Briefing the media on Thursday, Zulu said she knew about the upgrade, but did not expect it would fail, leaving those dependent on her department struggling.

“We are very sorry about what happened because we know people’s livelihoods depend on grants from the government. We are doing everything possible not to find ourselves in a situation wherein our systems experience a glitch.

“The systems we use are complicated and we are always on the lookout for a system failure. With this one, we did not expect the system would experience a problem. It is a new system.” 

Zulu said while upgrades cause difficulties, these are usually resolved within days.

On Thursday, Postbank confirmed completing more than 500,000 payments, with about 100,000 beneficiaries still to receive theirs. 

Regarding complaints by those who had to take out loans to survive and travel to check on payments, Zulu said she could not guarantee the department would reimburse them. 

“It is not something we can talk about today. The department delivers social grants and we do not have an extra budget. If we say we must reimburse the money people spent using transport and all, it is not something we can decide on the spot. We must consider budgets.”