6 months of lockdown and thousands still waiting for answers from SASSA over R350 grant
31 August 2020
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has learned that the previous Minister of Social Development, Bathabile Dlamini, spent more than R2.5 million for a technical task team to review the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) business model and make recommendations in reforming how SASSA made its cash payments.
In a reply to a DA parliamentary question, the Department of Social Development (DSD) said that it paid six technical advisers a total of R2 534 831,05 between May and October 2018.
These technical advisors clearly did not fix any of the Agency’s challenges as reports confirm that SASSA is currently drowning under a backlog of 300 000 emails and 4 000 attempted phone calls a day from desperate people needing assistance with the Special Covid-19 Relief of Distress (SRD) Grant of R350.
SASSA now hopes to solve this dire situation by outsourcing the flood of calls and emails to a new call centre that is expected to deal with 90% of the emails and phone calls with an 80% success rate.