Social Development
With reference to the Western Cape Department of Social Development’s commitment to assist and collaborate with the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa):
(a) What specific efforts or programmes has his Department engaged in collaboratively with Sassa to support vulnerable beneficiaries and (b)(i) what support, if any, has his Department provided to aid the migration process relating to the Sassa Gold Card system and (ii) how is his Department assisting beneficiaries in this regard?
- The Western Cape Department of Social Development has a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with SASSA on support provided by the two entities to vulnerable beneficiaries requiring grants, particularly for foster care, older persons, and social relief grants for persons facing undue hardship. The department also facilitated the signing of a tripartite MOU with SASSA and the City of Cape Town to deal with matters of social relief and disaster response in a coordinated manner. The MOU provides guidance for the coordination and cooperation process between the Parties. The purpose of this MOU is to outline institutional arrangements and procedures for the reactive disaster response and mitigation phases of disaster management.
- (i) As the Western Cape Minister of Social Development, I have initiated a process of ongoing meetings and consultations with the Provincial SASSA management to identify ways of supporting SASSA during the process of gold card immigration. In this regard, the Minister had conducted various unannounced visits at SASSA offices to witness the challenges and recommend solutions. Pursuant to these engagements, the Department of Social Development’s customer care unit was tasked with receiving all card-related inquiries from the Provincial Call Centre as well as regional and local offices for routing directly to the Postbank Management Team.
During a 21 February 2025 MINMEC meeting I also flagged the lack of sufficient service sites for the card migration in the rural areas as well as the lack of capacity in the Cape Metro area. SASSA attended this meeting, and following this engagement, more sites were rolled out.
We also did oversight visits at the mobile Postbank sites for card migration.
(ii) The Department’s Ministry and local offices have assisted with providing communication on the card swap process to affected clients and have also engaged with municipalities and civil society stakeholders to assist with communications and support to vulnerable beneficiaries wherever possible.
