Johannesburg - The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Thursday called on Social Development Minister Susan Shabangu to intervene in what is described as a "South Africa Social Security Agency (Sassa) Roodepoort disaster" after it received complaints that the office there has been closed for the last two days.
"The DA is being inundated with complaints from Sassa beneficiaries in Roodepoort after the office has been closed for two days since Tuesday this week with no services being rendered," said Bridget Masango, the DA Gauteng spokesperson for social care and cohesion.
She said Shabangu should urgently intervene in the closure of the Sassa Roodepoort office and explain its failure to assist social grant beneficiaries.
"Sassa cannot continue to make excuses for its ever-failing biometric systems, which are supposed to be used to capture beneficiaries' data. The DA is concerned that the nationwide backlog in the capturing of data could reach disastrous levels by the end of this year."
Masango said the complaints come a month after the DA conducted an oversight visit to the Sassa office in Roodepoort, where qualifying beneficiaries were turned away without their applications being captured and recorded.