Human rights organisation Black Sash has voiced its strong objections to Thursday's deadline imposed by the Department of Social Development and Postbank for the complete migration from the outdated gold Sassa cards to the newly issued black Postbank cards.

On Monday, during a press briefing, Post Bank CEO Ntomboxolo Mbengashe revealed that the March 20 deadline to migrate from the gold Sassa (South African Social Security Agency) card to the Postbank black card will go ahead as planned.

Mbengashe warned that social grant recipients, who fail to switch to the new card must not attempt to use the old card after the deadline.

"We have a deadline of the 20th of March 2025. There has been some confusion around it but the deadline means that the Sassa gold card will no longer be working. We are pleading with all the beneficiaries to not attempt to use this card after March 20 to access their grants, "she said.

Mbengashe said that even though the bank account number linked to the card will not change, beneficiaries will not be able to use the old cards after Thursday.

Reacting to the deadline and the resultant frustration by beneficiaries, Black Sash expressed its concerns over the handling of this process.

Spokesperson, Oliver Meth said the migration process has not been handled in a proper manner with many technical and logistical glitches affecting the smooth implementation of the migration process.

"This replacement process was rolled out from September 2024 at various retailers with a phased in approach of sites across the country. Sadly, the replacement process has been plagued by several challenges which Black Sash and our partners have witnessed first-hand on the ground during the grant payment week in February 2025," Meth said.

Among the many challenges faced by Sassa beneficiaries on the ground are communication and access to Postbank card replacement sites.

Meth said that some of the sites that have been selected by Postbank do not necessarily reflect where Sassa card holders can collect their grants as some of the post office branches have since been shut down amid post office closures across the country.

"Some sites do not exist, and the retailers share that they are not aware that the Post Bank card replacements were supposed to be happening at their stores.

"We found beneficiaries unclear about where their February grant payment was and they are now being pushed to the Postbank black card, without proper recourse addressing the February non-payment or explaining what would happen or should happen, if non-payment continued.

"The massive network glitches that always happen on grant pay days forced Post Bank to have to turn away clients and ask them to return when the network is up and running," Meth said.

He said some of the affected beneficiaries are forced to travel long distances to access the sites while others have been turned away by Postbank employees.

With the migration deadline approaching, Mbengashe revealed that they have reached more than 1 million Sassa beneficiaries who have applied to be migrated to the new system while more than 2,6 million people are currently using Postbank to access their grants.

“We have actually reached the 1 million point in terms of the Sassa beneficiaries that we have swapped cards to. We are currently sitting at 1,1 million beneficiaries and around 2.6 million beneficiaries use Postbank as their Sassa grant payment method, showing that 50% of beneficiaries have replaced their gold cards," she said.

According to social development, the Sassa gold cards are being replaced due to them expiring and updates needed to the cards.

The department said the new black card will be more secure for grant payments with Mbengashe adding that progress is being made to complete the process.

Mbegashe and acting Sassa CEO Themba Matlou briefed the media on Monday following the court appearance of four former SASSA employees, who face multiple fraud and corruption charges.

On Friday, police from Gauteng Commercial Crime Investigation Unit and investigators from Sassa arrested four Sassa employees for alleged fraud linked to linked to more than R260 million stolen from beneficiaries through ghost cards.

siyabonga.sithole@inl.co.za

blacksash

Black Sash slams social development's deadline for SASSA card migration