By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has taken the Minister of Social Development to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) for its recent social grant fiasco, which resulted in scores of social grant recipients, including pensioners, being left without their payments.
The party also included the South African Social Security Agency and Postbank in its complaint.
The DA shadow minister of social development, Bridget Masango, who lodged the complaint at the commission’s offices in Johannesburg on Tuesday, said the government is failing to protect the rights and dignity of its citizens.
“The core issues at the heart of our grievance encompass the right to human dignity. Delayed grant payments have plunged the poorest among us into profound suffering, impacting their dignity significantly.
“Delays in accessing funds for food and medicine have placed the lives of grant recipients at risk, leaving them vulnerable to malnutrition and illness.
Masango says the latest grant payment debacle also affected vulnerable South Africans’ right to healthcare, food, water, and social security.
“The failure to ensure timely payments directly infringes upon the rights of citizens to social security, significantly impacting their ability to afford essential food and healthcare. Grant payment failures disproportionately affect children, compromising their right to nutrition, shelter, basic health services, and social services,” added Masango.
A system update was believed to have caused the “glitch” that caused payment delays to 600,000 grant beneficiaries.
The figure represents some 10% of the more than 5 million beneficiaries who access their grants through Postbank.
SAHRC has confirmed receipt of a complaint from the official opposition party around the social grant crisis.
SAHRC spokesperson Wisani Baloyi: “The SAHRC can confirm that it received a complaint from the DA regarding issues of delayed payments in terms of social services. The commission will assess the complaint in line with the complaints handling procedure and we’ll try to get in touch with the Department of Social Development and update the DA as well in terms of the process, in line with the complaints handling procedures of the commission.”
On Monday, Build One South Africa (Bosa) requested the Financial and Fiscal Commission investigate the department’s decision to return the R15 billion in social grant funding to the Treasury.
Bosa said the money had been returned due to Sassa’s failure to spend the funds on social grants, with Roger Solomons of Bosa saying there could be no excuse why pensioners were inconvenienced in this manner.
However Minister of Social Development Lindiwe Zulu said the money returned to National Treasury was not R15 billion and would not affect the social relief of distress (SRD) grant budget.
Zulu said the department returned R4 billion to the National Treasury and it did not affect the budget for the SRD grant or beneficiaries.
She said the money was repurposed.
“The money that was returned was for the 2022/23 financial year and it was repurposed for other areas,” said Zulu, explaining the department budgeted for 15 million people but ended up paying 10.5 qualifying beneficiaries in that financial year.