Minister Londt welcomes proposed increase in Postbank service points for Western Cape
I welcome the news by Postbank that it is planning to increase service points for the replacement of SASSA Gold Cards to Postbank Black Cards.
According to a presentation by Postbank to the Portfolio Committee (National Parliament) today, it will be boosting sites in the Western Cape over the next three weeks. Initially, Postbank had planned to have only 27 sites in the province, of which only a paltry 16 materialised. At those 16 sites, there were numerous problems with long queues, staff not arriving on time or at all, and sites often not even being operational. Now they have committed to increasing it to 70 service points in the province over the next three weeks.
Postbank’s plan for the Western Cape, as per its presentation to the PC:
While I welcome this commitment, I am so ashamed by how the national Department of Social Development is treating our most vulnerable residents, and I am doing everything I can to be their voice here in the Western Cape.
We have been repeatedly calling for a rapid expansion of services after seeing chaos across the province as SASSA grant beneficiaries desperately tried to get their cards replaced before the first deadline.
Last week I said that we were fighting for our fair share of increased service points. This was because Western Cape’s grant beneficiaries make up roughly 11% of total SASSA beneficiaries in the country, but the province was only allocated 7% of the Postbank service points.
This limitation has had a compound effect on the number of beneficiaries that still need to migrate to the new Postbank card. This has resulted in the outstanding card migrations being 12% higher in the Western Cape than outstanding national card migrations. To put the percentages in real numbers: on average WC service points were expected to handle almost 24 000 beneficiaries per site whilst the national average was around 8 500.
And while SASSA and Postbank are national entities and do not fall under the power or responsibility of the Western Cape Government, I have been applying all the pressure that I can and raising concerns with national counterparts to ensure the many problems around the card migration process are addressed with urgency. This includes the lack of service points especially in rural areas, where our residents have to travel vast distances.
I am pleased to hear that Postbank will be boosting service points and increasing staff, but I am concerned about the time period in which it is planning to do so. The deadline for the card replacements is 20 March 2025, but we need guarantees that vulnerable residents – such as those with disabilities, those who are bedridden, and the elderly – will not be left behind in this process. We need surety that beneficiaries living in rural areas are reached by Postbank, whether through its roaming teams or addition of new sites.
If the rollout of extra service points is to happen over the next three weeks, it seems prudent for the 20 March deadline to be extended again. We ask that national government considers another extension because the current rate of replacement makes it impossible for WC beneficiaries to migrate successfully. This entire situation is causing unnecessary and quite frankly cruel and callous anxiety for many of the most vulnerable residents of the province. We see this impact daily with the queries we receive. We must ensure that all those who need to replace their cards have a fair chance to reach the new sites.
We will be monitoring Postbank closely in this roll-out and we expect that they do so with urgency. We do so, as has been the case since the beginning of this process, for the hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries in the province for whom these grants are a lifeline.
Media Enquiries
Monique Mortlock-Malgas
Media Liaison Officer to Minister Jaco Londt
Department of Social Development