Postbank, the South African Post Office and the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), are urging grant recipients who are still experiencing problems in receiving their money to reach out to their offices.
This comes after a technical glitch on Postbank’s payment system left thousands of pensioners across the country without their grants from Tuesday leading up to Friday, 8 September. Grant recipients could not access their money from retailers and ATMs and many were left stranded without any money to return home.
A concerned pensioner who did not want to be named, pleaded with residents to be more compassionate towards pensioners and assist them when in need of help.
“It was sad to see some of the pensioners crying because they could not get their money due to a zero balance on their cards. Many of them are paying a lot towards their water and electricity bills and with the food price so high, they barely have any money left to buy food. They wait for this day and yet when it comes, there’s no money for them to collect. This is really sad as many did not have any money to return home,” said the pensioner.
In a statement released on Tuesday, 5 September, Postbank spokesperson Bongani Diako said: “Postbank advises SASSA grant beneficiaries that we are experiencing intermittent technical issues which are affecting some beneficiaries’ ability to withdraw their funds from ATMs and retailers. The technical challenges also affect some SASSA SRD R350 withdrawals within retailers. SASSA grant beneficiaries are assured that Postbank’s technical teams are working around the clock to resolve the issue.”
According to the Minister of Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu, the system challenges were resolved on the morning of 6 September.
“Postbank has implemented a manual process to reverse funds into the affected beneficiaries’ accounts. Originally this affected approximately 600 000 beneficiaries, which translates to around 10% of the 5.3 million beneficiaries that are paid their social grants via Postbank’s SASSA Gold Cards monthly. We would like to confirm to South Africa that the majority of these accounts have now been corrected and clients have been able to access their money. However, it is important to acknowledge that due to the manual processes involved, the procedure is time consuming, which has taken a longer than desirable period for clients that were impacted since last week to access their money. Government assures South Africa and social grant recipients that and those that have not yet received their social grants payments will be paid their money in full. We encourage our clients who are still encountering challenges with accessing their grant money and require support to contact the Postbank call centre on 0800 53 54 55 or send a text message to our WhatsApp line on 073 806 1631 or email to PBbalancingSaswitch@postbank.co.za,” said Zulu.
