Bid to stop grant abuse welcomed

Human rights organisation the Black Sash has welcomed an amendment to the Social Assistance Act meant to clamp down on unauthorised deductions from social grant beneficiaries’ accounts. 

The department of social development earlier this month stepped in to halt unauthorised deductions on South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) social grants by introducing revised regulations.

The department said it hoped this would end unauthorised and unlawful deductions and ensure better control.

Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini said the revised regulations would clarify aspects of the existing regulations, which had been bypassed in many instances.

Sassa spokesman Kgomoco Diseko said the amended regulations did not allow for any deductions off a Sassa debit card, except for a funeral policy which could not exceed 10% of the value of the social grant concerned.

“This development has brought relief to thousands of households that were affected negatively by unauthorised deductions coming of their grants and it is a step in the right direction,” he said.

Diseko also shared the department’s plans to establish a state-run funeral plan, saying they were confident that such an entity could better “serve our beneficiaries and eliminate incidents of beneficiaries being made to sign contracts they don’t understand. It will bring a lot of needed transparency to the system.”

In February alone the agency said it had received more than 40000 queries with 15000 related to unauthorised airtime deductions.

Last year the Daily Dispatch was inundated with complaints from social grant beneficiaries who claimed to have unauthorised debit transactions on their accounts.

On asking about these transactions at the East London Sassa offices, they were informed the money was mostly used for prepaid services such as airtime and electricity.

Diseko said unauthorised debit orders were done on a cellphone using a beneficiary’s card number via e-mail marketing, using Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) technology.

Grant beneficiary Anthony September, 65, from Pefferville in East London, said that between June and November last year his R1410 grant money had been short of between R300 and R700.

“I went to the Sassa offices in East London where an official told me that the money taken out of my account was used for buying airtime and electricity,” he said.

Speaking to the Dispatch yesterday Black Sash advocacy manager Elroy Paulus said: “The amendment of the Social Assistance Act was a breath of fresh air to grant beneficiaries who have been defrauded, had money stolen or were duped into allowing unauthorised debit orders to go off their Sassa branded cards.”