SASSA to provide aid to areas affected by looting
The South African Social Security Agent says it will provide relief in a form of vouchers to those affected by the looting and unrest. In an interview with enca media house, Sassa spokesperson Paseka Letsatsi said if you are a beneficiary of a Sassa grant you won’t qualify for the Sassa relief programme.
“This is targeted at people who are facing undue hardships, especially given the fact of what happened this week where there was looting and so on and in some instances there were killings,” Letsatsi said.
“Tomorrow [Monday] we would be giving the platform because you know that our IT section, together with those people who are dealing with grants administrations, they are trying that some of these things are done online.
“We are trying to get people to not come to the offices and so on, but in any case, we cannot say as an organisation that let’s wait to make sure that the system is such that people can be able to apply online when we are aware that there is a crisis. We had said that we cannot allow people to go to bed hungry even for a single day.”
It’s been a week since the unrests started, with Gauteng and Kwazulu Natal leading in the looting that left many shops closed. The aftermaths of the looting saw hundreds of people queuing outside stores that survived the looting to get basic needs.
