Publications
Partners
- Social grant payments have been delayed due to a technical glitch at Postbank.
- The delay has affected thousands of South Africans with some waiting until Friday to have access to their grant.
- Civil organisations said the current system has been plagued with technical glitches for a while.
- For more financial news, go to the News24 Business front page.
A system error at Postbank has delayed the payment of social grants for thousands of South Africans for days.
On Tuesday, a technical glitch meant that beneficiaries, including pensioners and disability grant recipients, had to wait in long queues and were told the "system was offline", GroundUp reported.
Some have resorted to staying over at payment sites because they cannot afford to come back to receive their grants, says human rights group Black Sash. According to Black Sash, technical issues have plagued the social grant system for months.
Postbank said due to the system error, SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) beneficiaries could not withdraw their funds via ATMs and retailers. Grant payments at post offices were unaffected.
The glitch persisted until Wednesday morning, and Postbank said grant recipients could finally start accessing their grants at ATMs and retailers on Thursday.
READ | 'System glitch' stalls social grant payments to pensioners
But while the glitch has been rectified, some beneficiaries could find themselves waiting until Friday to be paid. This comes as they wait for funds to be reversed into their accounts before they can withdraw their grants from ATMs.
According to Postbank, the reversal of funds began on Wednesday and has continued since. Beneficiaries, including old age grant recipients and disability grant recipients, have been encouraged to collect grants on Friday.
"When these transactions timed out, unfortunately, the funds weren't automatically reversed into the affected beneficiaries accounts [...] Whilst some beneficiaries that were part of the accounts backlog requiring reversals of funds into their accounts have already accessed their money, all beneficiaries affected by transaction failures on Wednesday and Tuesday are requested to only come forward on Friday as all account corrections would be up to date," Postbank said in a statement.
Black Sash spokesperson Angie Richardson said the problem of technical glitches had been experienced at Postbank since November 2022.
"From the start Postbank’s system has not been designed to administer the payment of social grants adequately," she said.
According to Richardson, many people are still affected by the technical glitch, and additional grant payment channels will only cause delays for beneficiaries.
