Chilly reception
IT’S unacceptable the way the government is running its institutions, from run-down overcrowded hospitals to Home Affairs and even Sassa (social grants), often with unproductive, unwilling staff.
I have been helping a disabled person who receives only a tiny, ridiculous grant that hardly covers any expenses which in itself is ludicrous. Their card has not provided any money this month. They have to be renewed. Three times we went to Sassa at considerable expense. Queues are unmanageably long and extend well into the road and around the block, and the recent cold has not helped as people queue up in the pre-dawn dark of winter in the tiny hope of beating longer lines later on, only to be sent away to get new affidavits and new documents. In returning one is told the new finger print machine has been stolen (who is using it? Making false ID documents? The question must be asked) and the people told to return on Saturday.
As the photo shows Saturday was no good either. We eventually gave up. The queues were uncomfortably long and we will have to return yet another day.
The situation is intolerable and the government needs to get its act in order. There are too many stories of corruption and incompetence with staff seemingly doing you a favour, in so many departments, but to leave the old, frail, and disabled waiting without a cent is deplorable to say the very least! Agi Orfanos Blouberg