Sara-Jayne Makwala King5 August 2025 | 9:30

SASSA responds to growing beneficiary frustrations

Listeners ask the Acting General Manager at SASSA - what is being done to fix this system?

SASSA responds to growing beneficiary frustrations

Grant recipients queue outside the Cape Town SASSA office amid ongoing payment holds linked to a new beneficiary review process. Picture: Kayleen Morgan/EWN

Lester Kiewit is joined by Griffon Pheiffer, Acting GM at SASSA.

Listen below:

At their wits' end.

Every week Good Morning Cape Town listeners -  pensioners, parents, the unemployed - share their frustrations at having to deal with SASSA.

From standing in freezing early morning queues to years long delays, their stories highlight the inefficiencies of a system designed to help those most in need. 

Their concerns speak to a system that feels broken.

So what's being done to deal with some of those concerns?

Pheiffer explains that one of the ways they are trying to alleviate queues in the Western Cape is by allocating specific days for specific grant types.

"On Mondays, for example, it's earmarked for our old-age grants...we're trying also to take out from the queue our most frail and vulnerable beneficiaries to ensure they are being assisted earlier."
- Griffon Pheiffer, Acting GM - SASSA

Last December, while broadcasting live from SASSA's Bellville offices, the Good Morning Cape Town team heard reports of beneficiaries sleeping on the street to secure a spot at the front of the queue.

"There is no system in place to ensure that when someone isn't assisted on the one day, that come the next day that person will at least reach first in the line,"  Standing Committee on Social Development Western Cape member Wendy Kaizer-Philander told Lester Kiewit.

But Pheiffer is urging members of the public not to sleep on the street.

"Our office hours is only from 7am...we're trying to assist clients with alternative dates, with appointments, saying, listen if we can't assist you, please come back on a Friday or we give you an appointment for a Friday."
- Griffon Pheiffer, Acting GM - SASSA
"We also encourage our clients to make use of our online portal for the social grants, you can apply online and not necessarily come to SASSA offices to apply."
- Griffon Pheiffer, Acting GM - SASSA

Recently SASSA held back the grants of some 210 000 recipients who were suspected of having undisclosed additional incomes.

But the agency came under fire for the way in which is has pursued the review process to establish whether beneficiaries are entitled to receive a grant.

Hundreds of people, many of them frail and elderly, have been standing in queues in cold, wet conditions to prove they are entitled to the SASSA payouts.

"We are trying to improve our system's integrity...this is also part of the process... to ensure that the most eligible beneficiaries are receiving the social grant."
- Griffon Pheiffer, Acting GM - SASSA