Confusion reigns whether beneficiaries of social grants still have to present themselves for yearly reviews.

The South African Social Security Association, SASSA, announced before Christmas that the review system had been suspended countrywide,

“We are asking all beneficiaries who received letters from Sassa requesting them to review their social grants to ignore the notices,” SA Social Security Agency Shivani Wahab said.

“No social grants will be cancelled.”

Ms Wahab said there had been confusion between a previous re-registration project completed in October and the social grant review process.

The re-registration project aimed to provide each beneficiary with a debit card to collect their monthly payments.

The review process, however, was to establish if people were still eligible for a social grant.

She said that subsequently some beneficiaries received letters telling them they needed to come in for a review within 90 days — or the grants would be suspended.

“This resulted in large numbers of beneficiaries arriving at our offices and service points… due to challenges with staff capacity, we were unable to assist everybody, which in turn led to unacceptable service levels. Based on this, a decision was taken to suspend the social grant review process.”

However, recipients of state grants in the Dundee area told the Courier that SASSA had insisted that they undergo a review – most a medical check up.

The confusion has been further compounded by a shortage of state doctors at the Dundee Hospital which issued a notice in December saying that no medical reviews would be done.

One beneficiary told the Courier that he would lose out on his December and January grant as a result of this.

“SASSA say it is not their fault and the hospital say they do not have doctors. So we lose out because of this which is not fair.  For many the state grant of just over R1100 a month is all we receive,” he said.