[FiLE] The Government Gazette details how several social grants will rise in value this month, and again in October 2022 – Image: SASSA / Supplied
Didn’t receive your SASSA grant? The matter has been resolved
More than 600 000 SASSA grant recipients were unable to receive their monies due to a glitch with the Postbank payment system
[FiLE] The Government Gazette details how several social grants will rise in value this month, and again in October 2022 – Image: SASSA / Supplied
Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Mondli Gungubele has assured the 600 000 social grant recipients who were unable to receive their monies due to the system glitch at Postbank, that the problem has been resolved.
Gungubele alongside his Social Development counterpart Lindiwe Zulu briefed media in Pretoria on Thursday, 14 September 2023.
The glitch caused great inconvenience for the country’s most vulnerable. Many had no choice but to sleep outside grant locations and sites as they didn’t have the money to go back home.
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WHAT CAUSED THE GLITCH?
According to the ministers, the Postbank malfunction was a result of a systems upgrade the Postbank is introducing to provide a better service. People were unable to receive their old age and disability grants from ATMs and retailers.
“The system challenges led to the transactions of beneficiaries resulting in ‘transaction incomplete errors’ because of the system’s communication timeouts. The ‘transaction incomplete errors’ are common payments systems errors within the banking space, however normally go by unnoticed due to automated reversal functionality. The system challenges that affected Postbank unfortunately impacted the availability of the auto reversal functionality,” Gungubele said.
DID SASSA GRANT RECIPIENTS RECEIVE THEIR MONIES?
Both ministers have said that most of the SASSA grant recipients have been able to receive their monies from the afternoon of 6 September 2023 as the Postbank system has been working optimally since then.
More than 4 million individuals were paid their social grants money by Postbank through the SASSA Gold Cards on 7th and 8th September 2023.
“However, there might be few beneficiaries who have not yet received their social grants. Unfortunately, though, due to the automated reversal not working on the 5th and 6th, a number of clients, mainly the elderly, were unable to access their funds for a prolonged period of time as a manual process had to be implemented to credit their accounts,” they said.
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