25 June 2025
At a meeting at the Khayelitsha local SASSA office, residents complained about constant long queues. Archive photo: Mary-Anne Gontsana
A meeting about an upcoming “outreach” programme by the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, on Friday turned into a forum for attendees to air a list of grievances.
Complaints of applications for social grants being refused and long queues outside SASSA offices were the main grievances.
Chaired by Khayelitsha local office assistant manager Freddie Sidali, the meeting was held at the Kuyasa Library in Harare, which shares a building with the local office.
“Without our beneficiaries, there can be no SASSA. Without the queues, there can be no SASSA,” said Sidali. “So, the queues that you see outside SASSA offices are confirmation that SASSA is doing its part to ensure that we assist everyone. But today we are not here to speak about the long queues, grant enquiries and so on. That is not the point of this meeting. Those questions will be discussed on a different platform.”
Sidali said the meeting was about the Integrated Community Registration Outreach Programme (ICROP), and a visit by Social Development Minister Nokuzola Tolashe to Khayelitsha.
But attendees disagreed.
Activist Sibongiseni Faku, from disability rights organisation Freedom to the Forgotten, said: “We cannot sit in a meeting with SASSA and be told that problems our people encounter will not be discussed.”
“Telling us the minister is coming, what solutions is the minister bringing?” asked Faku.
The meeting was also attended by SASSA staff members, members of the Khayelitsha Development Forum, staff from the Department of Social Development, members of youth and old age organisations, organisers of soup kitchens, the community policing forum, members of the early childhood development sector and Khayelitsha residents.
Goodman Makhanda said: “I work at a clinic here in Khayelitsha and we have a problem with complaints of people not being approved by the doctor to get a social grant and being turned away even though they really are sick.”
“People stand hungry [in] long SASSA queues. For the community to be told about a minister most of them don’t even know, is not going to change anything.”
Another woman who said she worked in a soup kitchen said something must be done about the queues at the office. “Some people queue here from as early as 3am, this can’t be how things are done. If the minister is set to come, we should have a meeting with her prior to the event and brief her about what to expect.”
Sidali, who was accompanied by Ananias Kgare, SASSA’s district senior manager, and other SASSA officials, put his presentation aside to give people a chance to talk.
“We have heard and noted everything that was said,” he said, promising to meet after the ICROP event, to be held on Friday 27 June at Harare Square. He said a similar event in Makhaza had drawn 2,000 people. Sidali said the event would bring services to the people and representatives not only of SASSA but of the departments of Home Affairs and Social Development, and the South African Police Service would attend.
According to Sidali, 60% of staff’s time at the Khayelitsha office is spent on the disability grant. He said almost R25-million worth of disability grants were paid to beneficiaries monthly in Khayelitsha and over 10,000 disability grants were paid out.
Staff member Belinda Tredoux said there were 26 staff members at the Khayelitsha office and each was expected to see 20 clients a day. “So, if you multiply the 20 by 26, we see about 500 clients a day,” she said.
To lessen the load at the Khayelitsha office, Sidali said a kiosk with a computer, scanner and printer would be opened, where clients could access some services without seeing a SASSA official.
Kgare added that there was also a plan with the Department of Health to develop a way for doctors to access clients’ medical information straight from the computer system in the case of disability grant applications.
He urged those present to report any fraud.