Pay R50 to get your grant – or go home penniless

The South African Post Office (Sapo) said it knew of instances in which self-appointed “queue marshals” would force people waiting to collect their Covid-19 relief grants to pay R50 or more to skip queues.

If they do not pay, beneficiaries often face returning home without any money at all.

“We are aware of such instances at some of our branches in the north of Pretoria,” said Sapo spokesperson Johan Kruger.

“No Sapo employee or other individuals have the right to ask beneficiaries to pay any fee to be serviced or to receive preferential treatment such as jumping a queue.”

Kruger said such practices were illegal.

“Customers are advised not to pay any Sapo employee – or any other person – requesting such a payment.”

Instead, they should consider laying a charge of bribery and corruption at their nearest police station.

“There is close co-operation between our security and investigations unit and the SAPS. Formal charges will help put a stop to this opportunistic and unethical behaviour.”

Kruger, however, said it should be noted that Sapo does not have jurisdiction over the behaviour of members of the public outside their property.

According to beneficiaries in Soshanguve, Hammanskraal and Ga-Rankuwa, men who only identify themselves as “queue marshals” ask a fee to skip the queue.

“If you don’t pay, you won’t get your money,” beneficiaries are told.

An employee at one of the post offices Rekord visited, who wanted to remain anonymous, said she was aware of the scheme and that some of her colleagues were taking part in it.

“Usually a consultant has to service on average 80 people a day, so they accommodate the ones that pay the R50 first.

“In some instances, a person who has not received their grant money for two months will be asked to pay R100 because they will get R700, double the usual Covid-19 relief grant.”

Philimon Tau said he was forced to pay R50 to receive his R350 unemployment grant at a post office branch in Hammanskraal.

Tau said he had been waiting at the line from 07:00 and was only approached by a marshal at around 15:30.

“The queue marshals came to the lines, they took people’s ID copies. They then told me that if I do not pay that R50, I might as well go back home because I will not get the grant money.”

Tau said those who refused to pay the R50 were then left behind, while they were taken into the post office.

“Inside the post office, after you get paid, they wait for you at the door and you have to give them the R50.”

READ MORE: Motorist arrested for bribery

He said because he needed the money to pay for the taxi home as well as groceries, he paid them R50.

Rekord can confirm that while at the queue, a so-called “marshal” approached and offered his services to our reporter before he realised who the reporter was.

Anybody who knows of a postal crime, or a crime apparently committed by a Sapo employee should report it to the post office’s toll-free crime-buster hotline on 0800-020-070.

The caller can make such calls anonymously and all calls are followed up.

Do you have more information about the story?

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