Investigating social grant payment methods for old age grant recipients in the Western Cape

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The research focuses on social assistance within the context of thedevelopmental state. In South Africa, the Social Assistance Act, 2004 (Act No.13of 2004) makes provision for the administration of social assistance and thepayment of social grants. The Act provides for the payment of eight grant typesincluding the payment of the Old Age Grant (OAG). The research focuses on theOAG and the payment methods exercised by OAG beneficiaries. The SouthAfrican Social Security Agency is established in terms of the South African SocialSecurity Agency Act, 2004 (Act No. 9 of 2004) and the payment of socialassistance has been transferred to the Agency.The literature review revealed that African countries in particular have followed adifferent path to the rest of the development world with regard to social security.There is a strong reliance on community management involvement of socialprotection programmes in middle Africa. The South African system is moreadvanced and is legislated. South Africa's social security system is a system oftargeted social grants. It makes access to social security a basic human right, asit is contained in the Bill of Rights. The rise of the developmental state afterWorld War 11 was championed by Japan, in particular, and this rise gave effectto the Asian Miracle. A comparison of different systems in the developing contextis undertaken in the study. One of the criteria from the comparison of systems isthat developmental decisions should be informed by a country's vision or longtermstrategy.The research is being undertaken at a pinnacle point in the history of SouthAfrica, in particular of the Agency responsible for the administration and paymentof these grants. The SASSA introduced the SASSA debit card (Appendix I) in2012. Beneficiaries can use this card at any store with a point of sale device tomake purchases and withdraw money at selected vendors published in theSASSA merchant list on the website of the Agency. The implementation of thisdecentralised system is however not without disagreement about the ideal path – questions about the advantages of electronic versus cash payments; and SASSAas 'Paymaster' versus the use of external service providers, is still beingdebated. This research attempts to assist in this debate through an investigationof alternative methods to disburse social grants, with specific focus on the oldage grant recipients.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University