Social Development Minister Susan Shabangu spent time on Wednesday helping elderly citizens swap their old social grant cards for new ones.
At a busy Post Office-SASSA desk, set up in front of the Old Assembly Chamber where she later tabled her Budget Vote speech, the Minister took her time to explain to elderly citizens how the new cards would work.
Minister Shabangu joined SASSA officials to help beneficiaries with the swapping of their current SASSA cards with new SASSA/SAPO cards.
In an interview shortly after helping beneficiaries, the Minister said the new cards came with benefits.
“The activity that you are seeing here …is what we call a card swap. A card swap means the SASSA [beneficiaries who possess old cards] are getting new cards…
“This one will work more like any other bank card. The difference is that … there will be no bank charges for any transaction,” she said.
She said what this means is that beneficiaries do not have to withdraw all their money at once. They are able to leave some and can come back and withdraw it in their own time.
“Even then, there will be no charges. They can make as many withdrawals as they like and they will not be charged for those transactions.”
The Minister said the card swapping session was important as it showed beneficiaries that the process, which was also being rolled out in other parts of the country, is seamless.
The ease with which one can swap cards is a demonstration that the partnership between SASSA and SAPO is working well.
The Minister said the card swapping process formed part of SASSA’s compliance with the court order as far as the roll out of new SASSA-SAPO cards was concerned.
She said the process was going well across the country and that both entities were on hand to address any technical challenges that may arise during the rolling out of new cards.
“We are going to ensure that by all means, our beneficiaries continue to receive their grants without any hiccups.” – SAnews.gov.za
