Many of the approximately 10 million approved Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant applicants depend on Post Office branches around the country to collect their money.
However, due to the high number of grant beneficiaries needing to collect their grant money, there are often long snaking queues at Post Office branches around the country.
The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) allows grant beneficiaries to collect their grants at the Post Office, a Pick N Pay or Boxer Store or have the money paid directly into their banking account.
Sassa spokesperson, Paseka Letsatsi says that the agency may now have time to engage with more entities to increase the number of options available where grant beneficiaries can collect their money.
He explains that this became possible after President Cyril Ramphosa announced a 12-month extension for the SRD grant.
Letsatsi said, “Now that there’s an extension we think we have time to interact with the merchants, to interact with the banks, so that we don’t necessarily have only few institutions where people can be able to access the R350 [grant]”.
He is also calling on people to wait for an SMS confirming their money is available before going to the Post Office. This will shorten the quest and prevent people from being turned away if their money is not available.
Letsatsi added, “we need to make sure that we upscale our beneficiary education and because of Covid, in some instances, we could only use the media to interact with our people. But because now, there is a relaxation in terms of The Protocol, we intend to make sure that we go to the communities and interact”.