Cape Town - The SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) has remained mum on its plans with Postbank, following several incidents of "system glitches" that left beneficiaries scrambling when their payments were late over the past two months.
Over 4 000 grant beneficiaries were affected by late payments last month, when they attempted to withdraw money either at the ATM or retailers.
In December, millions of beneficiaries using the Sassa gold card faced similar issues.
Postbank said the issues in December were due to glitches in its system, and trying to prevent cyber security breaches.
It said it did not anticipate challenges this month that were "within its control".
"Postbank does not anticipate any challenges within our control that may impact the timeous payments of social grants during the oncoming grants payment period. The cause of Postbank’s grants payments system performance issues noticed in the past payments run as communicated, was the result of the security efforts to avert the cybercrime activity targeting our environment," said Postbank spokesperson Bongani Diako.
According to Postbank, progress has been made to upgrade security, and investigations were ongoing.
"Most of the beneficiaries have been paid and we are resolving any outstanding queries as they come through.
Our IT security teams, including the additional private cybercrime expertise we have onboarded, will remain on the alert and the necessary determinations will be made should the cybercrime activities targeting our environment resurface. The investigation of the cybercrime issues is ongoing.”
Sassa said the payment dates for this month would be between Thursday and Monday.
Black Sash last year commented that after Sassa’s partnership with the South African Post Office (Sapo) came to an end in September 2022 - ‘after continuous challenges during the four-year partnership marred by a shrinking Sapo footprint, administrative challenges, technical issues, corruption, shortage of cash, robberies, and closure of Sassa offices things were expected to change, but the reality on the ground was different’.
In December 2021, Sassa was also still faced with getting the money back that it had lost from Cash Paymaster Services (CPS), to the tune of R380 million.
Sassa did not respond to requests for comment on what it was doing to resolve payment issues experienced by beneficiaries in terms of continuous “system glitches” at Postbank, and whether alternatives were being considered.
According to Sassa’s 2021/22 annual report, the irregular expenditure closing balance was R993 661 142, and it included R2 025 768 incurred during 2021/22.
“In the current year, the agency has also incurred irregular expenditure of R7482751 relating to the prior year and an additional R44 938 739 relating to leases expired in the prior years which were still in use in the year under review.
“During the financial year ended 31 March 2018, CPS invoiced Sassa R74786891.64 for the number of grants recipients directly paid by Sassa through BankservAfrica.
“The amount was paid with the understanding of honouring the grant payment contract that Sassa had with CPS, however, it was later concluded that the transaction was made in error in that CPS did not render the service and there was no contractual obligation to effect payment.
“A recovery process was initiated against CPS, however, since CPS is in liquidation, the litigation process was halted and Sassa had completed a claim form for R74-million and lodged the same with the liquidators of CPS.
The liquidator’s direction on this matter is still awaited,” the report stated.
Cape Times