EFF condemns lack of payments to SASSA beneficiaries for January 2024

12 January 2024

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) condemns the failure by the Department of Social Development to ensure that payments to South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) beneficiaries are made on time. As things stand, a reported 150 000 SASSA beneficiaries have not received their SASSA payments for January 2024, due to supposed verification delays, meaning thousands of families do not have means to sustain themselves.

This is not a new phenomenon, as SASSA beneficiaries are confronted by delayed payments on a monthly basis, which surrenders them to accruing debt from financial institutions and loan sharks. Part of these failures, can be attributed to the concerted effort to collapse the South African Post Office (SAPO), in order to surrender the disbursement of SASSA grants to the private sector in their entirety.

To make matters worse, it has been revealed that SASSA has paid more than R140 million to deceased people over the last three years, in what can only be described as a gross mismanagement of state funds. The trend in state-departments, of the social welfare payments being made to either dead beneficiaries or ghost beneficiaries, proves that the ANC has established numerous syndicates to siphon the money of the state into their personal coffers.

It is more harmful that this corruption and incompetence has a direct effect on the most vulnerable of society, who depend on grant money for their very survival.

Lindiwe Zulu has been a complete and utter failure as the Minister of Social Development, and is presiding over the misery and starvation of the poor in this country who are dependent on grants. Her continued tenure as a Minister, reveals the rewarding of failure by the Ramaphosa regime, and the use of ministerial positions to secure factional interests within the ruling party.

The empty threat by Cyril Ramaphosa, that their inevitable removal from power may result in the ceasing of social grants becomes moot, because Lindiwe Zulu has already ensured that on a monthly basis thousands of poor people do not receive their grants timeously.

The EFF calls on South Africans to recognise that the failure to pay social grants by the ANC government is a testament to their commitment to entrench the poverty of our people. It must be a reminder of the importance of Registering to Vote for the National and Provincial Elections in 2024, to remove the criminal syndicate that diverts grant money into their pockets through illicit means, such as "paying" dead beneficiaries for three-years.

Let us go out in our numbers and Register To Vote EFF on the 3rd and 4th of February 2024, for sustainable and consistent payment of social grants to the needy and the poor.

Issued by Sinawo Thambo, National Spokesperson, EFF, 12 January 2024