‘Where must we get bus fare’: SASSA pensioners describe costly back-and-forth reviews

Commenters are raising concerns about a SASSA review process that, in some cases, appears to demand repeated visits without resolution, each one costing pensioners money they don’t have. One frustrated commenter described the cycle: “SASSA doesn’t even help people when you get there…. Sending you home, they tell you to come tomorrow… the next day, when you go, they tell you again to come tomorrow. Where the hell must we get bus fare and taxi fare to go in and out to Sassa every day, as if they give you money to go up and down wasting the old people’s time, some are not healthy at all.”

Vanessa E Brown added that the confusion often starts before anyone even reaches an office: “They say they send an SMS, but you never receive it. Then they start paying you on the ‘fourth day’. Now you’re supposed to know you have to do something. But they don’t tell you what it is.”

Proving You’re Still Alive

For Celia Tyrer, the review itself was straightforward in theory but tangled in practice. “I went for the review on Monday, and it is literally to check you’re still alive – they issue a Life certificate – I didn’t even need all my documents I brought with – not even bank statements,” she wrote. But a technical hiccup complicated things further: “They couldn’t get any fingerprints off me, so now I have to go to Home Affairs to get a letter emailed to them that I’m still alive and then go back to Sassa and hope they’ve received the email.”

Accusations of a System Under Strain

The frustration has spilled into broader accusations about SASSA’s conduct. Johnny Sampson wrote: “I hope all these comments reach them they are corrupt to the core,” adding in a follow-up comment: “Let them crooks go to hell and ring the bells.”

While such claims remain unverified, they reflect a mounting sense among beneficiaries that a process intended to protect grant funds is instead placing an unfair burden on the pensioners who depend on them most.

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