Question NW2728 to the Minister of Social Development
08 December 2020 - NW2728
Abrahams, Ms ALA to ask the Minister of Social Development
What (a) number of personnel of the SA Social Security Agency have been assigned and solely dedicated to the special COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress grant appeal process and (b) are their (i) daily functions and (ii) workload?
Reply:
a) SASSA has no dedicated staff assigned to the special COVID-19 social relief of distress appeal process. There is a core team of approximately 10 people who are driving the appeals process, in addition to the other responsibilities they have. An additional 24 staff members have also been assigned to assist with the capturing and registering of appeals, while a minimum of two staff members per regions have been trained to assist, taking the total to approximately 52. The appeals, as with the applications, are systematically dealt with.
b) (i) The staff are drawn mainly from the grants administration environment at head office, while staff in the customer care environment in the provinces are assisting.
(ii) A total of approximately 60 000 appeal emails have been received, which need to be attended to by these staff, in order to register these, so that they can be reconsidered. To date, more than 37 000 have been registered.