With thousands of recipients relying on their grants to buy school uniforms and stationery before the new school year starts, not to mention food, Eastern Cape Sassa spokesperson Tabisa Nondwayi-Mayaba confirmed that 23,000 beneficiaries in the province had been hit by a glitch in January. On Thursday, the Dispatch visited East London’s Sassa offices to investigate, only to find the offices had closed early because they did not have water.
A senior Eastern Cape SASSA manager, who has been linked to a fraud case involving government funds of nearly half a million rand, is on the run from the Hawks after Thursday's arrest of four business people alleged to be her accomplices.
Out in the cold: Desperate pleas endure for government dailymaverick.co.za - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dailymaverick.co.za Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Cost of R120 to access R350 social grant Loyiso Dyongman > By Loyiso Dyongman - 18 January 2021 - 07:45 Early morning queues on Thursday at Joza post office in Makhanda. Image: Loyiso Dyongman.
A R120 chunk of the R350 Nomangesi Ndwayana and Nandile Ngemntu will each receive from the Covid-19 social relief of distress grant will go to pay the driver who brought them 50km from Peddie to Makhanda in the Eastern Cape to queue outside the post office.
The two travelled 50km from their Peddie village, arriving at 3am, only to find people already queuing.
“We do have a post office in Peddie town,” said Ndwayana. “But the challenge is that all the people from the rural villages [118 villages according to the Ngqushwa municipality website] here are served by one post office. You can just imagine all those villages coming together to a single post office. That is the reason we decided to come to Grahamstown [Makhanda] because they have a few post office