Pretoria – The Department of Social Development is looking at employing young people at pension pay out points to explain to older persons about their rights.
Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini said that most people don’t read newspapers and have no TVs, where they can find information on their rights.
“We thought that education is very important. We will do a knock and drop and door to door (campaign). We are also going to maximise our communications through community radio stations,” Minister Dlamini said.
According to a Ministerial Task Team report, 10 million bank accounts that service 16 million beneficiaries are at risk as ‘ambush’ marketing and fraudulent sales are on the increase.
The task team appointed by the Minister was mandated to explore the nature of deductions and find ways to ensure that grant recipients had access to appropriate recourse.
Minister Dlamini recalled that during her visit in North West, they had found many people recruiting the grant recipients to burial schemes and others offering them money.
“Because of revolving credit that is there, even the grant recipients will fight you and tell you they want (to borrow money from) loan sharks. This is a problem because the grants are meant to fight poverty but they have created a situation with the mashonisa [loan sharks].
“It is of great concern that these deductions are eroding the gains made by our democratic government over the past 20 years in term of the progressive realisation of social security and its impact on reducing poverty and inequality.
“The impact of the deductions has seriously compromised the dignity of grant beneficiaries. It continues to fuel indebtedness which reduces the quality of life of the poor,” the Minister said.
She assured that the work has begun and they are not going to stop but follow the legal route.
Minister Dlamini has welcomed the recommendations made by the task team and commits the department to work together with the affected government departments and civil society.
The task team will ensure that the SASSA-owned and controlled recourse system is in place to ensure that unlawful and immoral debit deductions are stopped and refunded with interest and bank changes, and where necessary backdated to 2012.
About R10 billion is paid out every month to 16 million beneficiaries across all various grants. – SAnews.gov.za
