Sapo ready for grants

The South African Post Office (Sapo) said yesterday it had completed upgrades to its national social grants IT system in time for the end-of-July payments cycle.

It said the upgrades would allow Sapo to process grant payments volumes involving social beneficiaries that have migrated to the new gold South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) card.

Last month, a system failure resulted in an estimated 700 000 social grant beneficiaries not receiving their payouts from Sassa on time, drawing condemnation from opposition political parties and rights groups.

The Post Office, mandated to be the payment channel for all social grants, said yesterday the IT improvements had increased its processing capacity to better than 160 transactions per second – an improvement of more than 700% and in line with banking industry standards.

“Our IT systems are ready for the upcoming month-end payments and we are confident that social grants beneficiaries will witness a smooth payments experience,” it said.

The new Sassa card is tailored to prevent illegal deductions on social grants. Beneficiaries can use it to make ATM and merchant cash withdrawals, free retail merchant purchases, as well as to withdraw cash over the counter inside a post office. – ANA