Sassa 'review' leaves thousands of desperate beneficiaries in limbo

CONFUSED, distressed and devastated is how thousands of South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) beneficiaries have been left after their grant payments were abruptly and 'unjustly' cut without warning.

- NICOLA DANIELS [e-mail]

Sassa is currently reviewing the eligibility of "targeted beneficiaries" suspected to have other alternative sources of income that were not disclosed to them. Sassa said 210 000 people were flagged to be having an additional source of income.

However the move has caused chaos on the ground for scores of pensioners, leaving countless elderly beneficiaries confused and distressed, unsure of what went wrong or how to fix it.

In a desperate bid to reclaim the only income many rely on to survive, some of them have been forced to endure long, freezing queues.

Roxanne Fourie, who took her mother to the Sassa officers in Long street yesterday, reported long queues of senior citizens who had been standing in the cold since around 4am because they had not been paid.

"I took my mom at half past 5am, if not a little bit earlier. Thousands of people were in that queue who hadn't received their pensions, it was going right down until Pick n Pay. They stood all day, leaning against the wall of the shops.