SASSA grant beneficiaries experience issues with new Postbank cards

Western Cape Social Development MEC Jaco Londt has encouraged social grant beneficiaries who have been experiencing issues with their new Postbank black cards, to consider having their SASSA grants paid directly into their personal bank accounts.

This comes after the provincial department reportedly received several complaints from grant beneficiaries about issues with withdrawing their grant money with the Postbank Cards.

The deadline for SASSA grant beneficiaries to move away from the Gold Cards to the new Postbank Black Cards is only 4 days away after the migration process was last extended to the 20th of March.

While the process continues, MEC Londt says his department is concerned about the panic that will ensue given the chaos that was seen over the last month.

Since Londt’s meeting with Postbank’s management earlier this month, where an agreement was seemingly reached to assist the province with some of the issues they’d been experiencing, the MEC says none of the commitments were fulfilled.

They have not provided updates on the operational service points so we could communicate this to the public.
They have not invited us to their meetings with SASSA.
They have not provided us with the necessary information so we can assist them with the recruitment of staff to work at card replacement service points.
They have not provided us with updates on the conversion rate of the card migration (how many Western Cape beneficiaries still need to replace their cards)

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“We had agreed to work together for the benefit of the thousands of Western Cape SASSA grant beneficiaries who need to be kept abreast of developments, but it seems that agreement was one-sided.”

While Postbank says beneficiaries with Gold Cards can do cardless withdrawals after the 20 March deadline, Londt has encouraged residents to consider the bank account option.

“If this option is more feasible, I will advise them to go to their nearest SASSA office to make this change.”

As of 12 March, 102 680 SASSA Gold Cards have reportedly been replaced in the province, 190 735 cards still need to be replaced and 28 631 beneficiaries have opted to move to other banks.

Furthermore, approximately 18,000 forms for beneficiaries to migrate to other banks have been submitted to SASSA and they have indicated that it will be captured timeously.

Meanwhile, over 1.4 million cards must still be replaced nationally.

“Postbank has shown it cannot be trusted to deal with the immense responsibility of dealing with the grant disbursements. The shambolic card migration process is evidence of this.” added Londt