Despite Sassa and Nsfas issues, ANC applauds itself for ‘addressing poverty’

The ANC has applauded itself for “creating a better life” and “addressing poverty ” through social grants and the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas) even though many beneficiaries have been left hanging after not receiving their monies.

ANC national spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri on Thursday gave an update on a number of issues, including social grants, Nsfas, and cost containment measures suggested by the National Treasury. 

This comes after payment issues occurred in the past few weeks, where about 600,000 social grant beneficiaries were not paid on time. About 95% of the beneficiaries have been paid to date.

At least 45,927 students were disqualified from getting bursaries due to processing gaps. 

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Bhengu-Motsiri said the ANC headquarters were monitoring the public updates provided by the government’s deployees on the issue of social grant payments. 

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“We are deeply concerned vulnerable households are in a precarious position due to the transitional challenges from one system to another. 

“Our deployees are being engaged to ensure clear communication on how the transition is managed and how long it will take to address the attendant problems,” she said.

Nsfas is ANC’s success story

Bhengu-Motsiri said the ANC, almost the last three decades, has transformed South Africa into a better place. 

“Nsfas is one of the most important social development tools orchestrated by the ANC-led government. Students from poor and working-class families’ lives are transformed by the provision of financial aid so they can develop themselves by accessing higher and further education training,” she said. 

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According to the ruling party, the number of people funded by Nsfas increased by a staggering 155% since 1994. 

Though financial aid has grown from R21.4 million to almost R50 billion it is still marred by challenges. 

Bhengu-Motsiri said the two pressing challenges confronting the system were allocating resources efficiently and sustainably. 

“Practically in everyday life, these play out as follows: do the right people have access to financial aid, and how do we close the missing middle gap? We note our deployees in government have gone about this by implementing a direct payment solution, which has onboarded 90% of the students in 21 universities across the country,” she said.

She said the efforts to streamline the application process against data in the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa), the South African Revenue Services (Sars), and the home affairs department were commendable. 

“This may also assist us in really getting an understanding of how extensive the missing middle problem is and attending to policy initiatives to address this speedily.”

Confidence in resilience of the economy

Bhengu-Motsiri said the capital projects, including ending load shedding and fighting crime and corruption, have not been stopped, and the ANC is confident in the resilience of the economy. 

“At the beginning of this year, some analysts and pundits had predicted our economic growth to be between negative growth and 0.1%. However, these projections have been constantly revised upwards to 1%, even amidst a global economic crisis, with many regions worldwide having a real risk of recession this year,” she said. 

“The intensity of load shedding will be reduced. As load shedding continues to ease with more units, particularly at Kusile, anticipated to come online in quarters 3 and 4 this year, we are confident our people’s economy and lives will reap the benefits.”

READ MORE: Stage 6 load shedding is a ‘short-term phase’, says Ntshavheni