NATIONAL NEWS - Social grant beneficiaries who may miss the 20 March deadline to replace their Postbank gold card with a black card, will be paid when they present their IDs and cellphone number at Post Office branches and retailers.
It will be through a cardless system that requires only an ID and a cellphone. The beneficiary cellphone number requires to be registered.
In the Western Cape, about 23% of beneficiaries have managed to migrate to the Postbank Black Cards to date (74 470 cards have been replaced, 248 449 cards have yet to be replaced). The national average is 30%.
This is according to Western Cape Minister of Social Development Jaco Londt who encouraged beneficiaries to look at all available options for receiving grant payments, such as having grants paid into their bank accounts.
"If this option is more feasible, I will advise them to go to their nearest SASSA office to make this change.
"While we are encouraged by Postbank’s plan to incrementally increase sites across the province, we are concerned at the pace at which it is doing this," said Londt in a statement issued after he had met with management of Postbank on Monday 3 March to discuss the migration from South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) Gold Cards to Postbank Black Cards.
"It was a constructive meeting in which I spoke candidly about the myriad issues around this process. The biggest problem has been the lack of Postbank service points in the Western Cape to accommodate the migration process. This is a matter I have been continuously raising since SASSA and Postbank first made the announcement of the deadline for card replacements.
"Postbank admitted that it became aware of this issue through constant news reports in the Western Cape," said Londt.
"We are pleased with Postbank’s willingness to engage with us, and we now have a better understanding of the problems they face, the biggest of which is resourcing. Postbank says it has had trouble in retaining staff to work the service points. There have also been challenges around staff being threatened or robbed in certain areas, which resulted in them resigning and leaving those sites inactive."
He said many of these problems could have been prevented if there had been collaboration between SASSA, Postbank, and other role-players.
Londt said he requested that Postbank keep the provincial DSD informed of the active sites and the schedule of its roving teams that will be going to areas where there are no fixed service points. This will then be communicated on social media along with municipalities for further dissemination.
On 4 March 2025, Postbank and SASSA appeared before the Western Cape Provincial Parliament’s Standing Committee on Social Development. During this meeting, both entities had to explain their role in the card migration process, including contingency measures in place to ensure beneficiaries still receive their grants after the 20 March 2025 deadline.
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