Over 23 000 Eastern Cape social grants beneficiaries are battling to prepare their children for the start of the academic year because they did not receive their January grant payments.
It's the latest in a comedy of errors at the SA State Social Security Agency which has admitted to paying monthly grants to some 74 000 dead people.
In most cases in the Eastern Cape, unpaid beneficiaries are for the foster care and child support grants.
This is quite normal in the province as every month thousands of beneficiaries sleep outside the Sassa offices in every town waiting for various glitches to be resolved.
Sassa in the province said this was caused by incorrect banking details provided when beneficiaries apply for grants or to change the method of payment.
Eastern Cape Sassa spokesperson Tabisa Nondwayi-Mayaba said: "On a monthly basis there are a fair number of beneficiary accounts that fail the bank verification process. We urge the beneficiaries to ensure that they provide correct banking details."
Many parents were dismayed when they went to withdraw their grants and came away empty handed.
Nothazamile Swartbooi, a resident in Gqeberha's Soweto-on-sea township who receives a foster care grant for her late sister's two children, is among those who did not receive their payments.
"I don't know what I'm going to do because one of the children will be starting high school. He needs a new school uniform and I don't have a cent to my name," she said.
Swartbooi said she was told at her local Sassa office that she would get a double the payment next month.
"But what good is that if I can't buy the child's uniform now? How is he supposed to start school without the correct uniform?" she asked.
Another beneficiary, Thundezwa Sobhuza, said when she lost her gold Sassa card in November. She immediately went to Sassa to change her banking details but has not received her child's support grant since December.
"I could not buy my son's Christmas clothes. He is starting grade 1 and now I won't be able to buy him a school uniform. I'm so disappointed. I don't know what to tell him," she said.
