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More Tales of Woe From Post Office Chaos

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Dear Editor

Nine Sakisizwe Supervisors in Willowmore have been trying for over a week to access their hard-earned stipends.

The Eastern Cape Department of Transport, under which the Sakisizwe Programme operates, insists that stipends be paid through the Post Bank. Participants are not allowed to decide on their own banking requirements.

The Willowmore Post Office has been closed for several weeks, which means that those who need to access their monies, must find an alternative Post Office outside of Willowmore. Unfortunately, the Post Office only allocates funds based on the planned payouts for a specific Post Office. This means that, unless a stipend has been allocated to a Post Office, there will not be sufficient money at that Post Office to pay other beneficiaries or government programme participants.

The Programme Coordinator has washed their hands of the crisis and instructed the nine Willowmore Supervisors to contact other Post Offices to arrange their payments. At this stage, Steytlerville, Oudtshoorn, Beaufort West and Aberdeen Post Offices do not have funds available and Graaff-Reinet Post Office is closed.

The Democratic Alliance has had to intervene on behalf of National Youth Service participants as well as EPWP workers over the past several weeks to ensure their stipends are paid. And yet, there has been no attempt to prevent further issues.

I have written to the Director-General of the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation and asked him to intervene and coordinate an urgent resolution to this issue. We have raised questions in the Bhisho Legislature on this issue and await a response. I will, today, write to the Minister and Director General of Communications to request their urgent intervention to arrange for funds to be made available to the Steytlerville Post Office for these nine beneficiaries so that their families can put food on the table this month.

The complete lack of interest, support and care displayed by the various officials and political role players in this crisis is staggering. It is time to put a DA government in place so that we can rescue South Africa.

Regards

Samantha Graham-Maré MP
Dr Beyers Naude Constituency Leader

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