Cape Town - Pressure is mounting on Sassa to find an alternative office for social grant beneficiaries in the Khayelitsha area.
Black Sash has called for Sassa to announce an immediate plan to address the sudden closure of the Khayelitsha office.
Social Development MEC Sharna Fernandez has written to her national counterpart Lindiwe Zulu requesting an urgent meeting regarding Sassa’s inability to secure proper offices.
On July 14, the Khayelitsha Sassa office closed after the Khayelitsha Shared Services Building started with the renovations expected to be completed next year. This was done without an alternative plan set in place to provide services and no communication ahead to the beneficiaries by Sassa.
Black Sash said Khayelitsha was the largest and fastest-growing township in South Africa and the impact of the sudden halt of services had been felt by some of the most vulnerable people in the country.
The organisation demanded that Sassa communicate its plans to reinstate services to the area urgently.
“The ramifications of the unanticipated closure of the only Sassa office in the area have caused great concern for Black Sash. It has created unexpected difficulty in accessing social grants, as well as placing an unforeseen financial burden on beneficiaries who now have to bear the cost of the transportation to alternative Sassa sites (for) services,” it said.
Black Sash said it had offered Sassa assistance in the development of a contingency plan and a communication strategy so that the community members that the Khayelitsha office services know what was happening.
Fernandez said the recent developments at the Khayelitsha shared services office had resulted in numerous aggrieved Sassa clients contacting the department's offices and threatening the staff.
Fernandez said she feared that the department may experience a similar breakdown at other shared facilities.
“Even though Sassa is a national entity and not under the jurisdiction of the Western Cape government, we wish to stress the importance of co-operation in an effort to find solutions to resolve the plight of the most vulnerable in our province,” she said.
An e-mail sent to Sassa to provide an update on their quest to secure an alternative office was still not responded to at the time of publication. However, last week Sassa said it had submitted the necessary documents for the application for Sub-council 26 offices located at Kuyasa Library and was awaiting feedback from the City.
National Social Development Department media liaison officer Sharlene Naiker said Zulu was aware of the closure and had engaged Sassa on this urgent matter. She was expected to meet with Fernandez to discuss it.