POST OFFICE SAYS ITS SYSTEMS ARE ALL READY TO MAKE PAYOUTS

Post Office insists it’s ready to pay, with their IT system on the money.

After the chaos of last month, when nearly 700,000 had to wait for their payments, pensioners and others have been told not to worry this week.

The South African Post Office (Sapo) on Tuesday allayed fears that it might not be able to pay millions of August social grants, saying their newly upgraded IT system was fully functional.

In fact, Sapo says, grant recipients will “witness a smooth payment experience”.

Last month a systems failure resulted in about 700,000 grant beneficiaries not receiving their payouts for about a week.

But in a statement on Tuesday Sapo COO Lindiwe Kwele said the glitch has been solved.

“Our IT systems are ready for the upcoming month-end pay- ments, and we are confident.

“The technicians have been working tirelessly with industry stakeholders since the beginning of the month to optimise our transaction capacity.

“Infrastructure upgrades have also been implemented on Postbank’s connectivity to Bankserv to improve transaction speeds,” Kwele said.

A strike by Post Office workers last month had also threatened services, but the unions have now accepted a 6.5% salary hike backdated to April.

Sapo is the gazetted preferred payment channel for all social grants in South Africa in a government-led initiative.

As part of the initiative, Sapo and Sassa are currently migrating grant beneficiaries to a new gold Sassa card that is tailored to prevent illegal deductions on social grants.

The new card operates fully within the national payment system. Beneficiaries who have the new gold card do not have to queue at the post office to access money.

The idea is that at midnight on the last day of the month, the money will be credited to the accounts, and beneficiaries can make transactions with their cards from any channel available to them.

“It is important for social grant beneficiaries to note that once you have switched to the new gold Sassa card before 22 July, you cannot use the new card at your previous Sassa paypoint.

“Your money will automatically be paid into the new card and you can withdraw cash at any ATM, over the till at shops such as Shoprite and Boxer and the post office, or you can simply use your card to buy goods at any shops that accept bank cards,” said Kwele.

The old white Sassa card will expire at the end of September.

To get the new card, beneficiaries should take their ID to any Sassa office, a selected post office branch or a dedicated card-swap site.

The Sassa call centre number is 0800-601-011 (8am – 5pm) and Postbank’s is 0800-535-455 (24 hours)

Our IT systems are ready for the upcoming month end payments