Don’t change social grants payment, plead hawkers

STREET hawkers yesterday said their businesses would suffer should the payment system of social grants be changed.

More than 100 hawkers set up their stands outside Schoemansdal Community Hall, outside Malelane in Mpumalanga, on the first day of social grants payments for this month.

Hawker Gugu Lubisi, a single mother of four children aged between two and 11, said business was booming. She sells vegetables.

“Today is a busy day. On a good day like this, I make close to R3 000. I will be here again tomorrow and then, on other dates, I visit other pay points.

“I usually go to five pay points a month. I make good money. As a single parent, every expense in the house falls on my shoulders,” said Lubisi.

The 28-year-old said she had studied up to matric.

“My parents were poor and I could not study further. This is how I make a living. My children are young and depend on me.

“If social grants are not paid from pay points any more, I will struggle. How else will I be able to support my children?” she asked.

She said she spent R2 000 a month on groceries and has one retail account with a monthly instalment of R300.

Another hawker, 48-year-old Martha Msimango, said she would struggle to make ends meet if the pay point system was changed.

She has a fruit and vegetable stand and also sells clothes and shoes outside pay points, including in Jeppes Reef, Driekoppies and Magogeni in the Nkomazi local municipality.

“I only sell at pay points. It will affect my business and life badly if the system is changed. I make about R600 a day. I have four children to support.

“I am building a house for us. The money I make from selling at pay points may be little but it makes a difference. It is better than sitting at home doing nothing,” Msimango said.

The Department of Social Development’s Lumka Oliphant said they were currently considering 18 bids to take over the social grants payments across the country.

She said the tender was worth R10-billion per month and would be for a period of five years. At least 17 million citizens depend on social grants.

“We started the tendering processes last year. Two major banks pulled out and three service providers were disqualified for not meeting the administrative requirements,” said Oliphant.

Sassa, whose five-year contract ends on March 31, continues to use CPS to pay beneficiaries.

“We also started negotiations with CPS. There are terms on how we are going to work going forward but I cannot discuss them now. There is the filing of the supplementary report to court. Negotiations [with CPS] started today and [the application] for approval for deviation from National Treasury [is under way],” Oliphant said.

She said CPS was offering a beneficiary-centred system and it was working. –

I only sell at pay “points. It’ll affect my life if system is changed