Category: Reportage

Source: South Africa News Agency

The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) has a contingency plan to ensure that social grants are paid without any hiccups on 1 April 2018 in an event that the Constitutional Court does not extend the Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) contract by six months.  

The Constitutional Court has asked SASSA to clarify why its legal counsel said during a court hearing that the social grant agency did not have a contingency plan to manage the phase-in phase-out process for CPS to hand over the payment of social grants — while at a media briefing, the SASSA Acting CEO reportedly said the opposite.

Dianne Dunkerly, the executive manager for grants administration, said the plan was being presented to the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) on Comprehensive Social Security and to a Cabinet meeting that was underway in Cape Town on Wednesday. 

“SASSA has a contingency plan which covers the full spectrum of payments and in fact, that is what we have been implementing by taking responsibility progressively for the different aspects for the payment function,” Dunkerly said.

In her presentation to the Portfolio Committee on Social Development on Wednesday, Dunkerly said the contingency plan for cash payments was premised on a few aspects. This includes:

–       Direct deposits into the current SASSA cards;

–       The identification of post offices that can provide over the counter payments that are within a five kilometre radius of pay points;

–       Identification of banking infrastructure that can be used by cash beneficiaries;

–       Request by banks to provide mobile infrastructure in under- or un-serviced areas; and

–       The provision of transport to bus residual numbers of beneficiaries to the nearest infrastructure to access cash.

Dunkerly said the contingency plan was strengthened following the delays with the cash tender.

“All of that has been part of this broad contingency, where we did not have detail and we were still working on things now and it is being discussed currently at IMC and Cabinet so we are not able to give too much information until we have been consulted there…

“We have ideas and these were some of the ideas that were presented by the [Acting] CEO at the press briefing. The initial broad contingency plan was to confirm that we would follow an open tender process for the tender payment, which we have done.

“However, there was a delay so we know that the cash service provider is only going to be ready to start paying by 1 July [2018]. We are still sitting with a space of a few months so we needed to say that is the reality we are facing now (sic). 

“If the court does not grant the phase-in phase-out period, how are we going to manage that? And that is work that is being presented to the IMC and it is being discussed by Cabinet this morning and there is lots of work being done on that.” 

SASSA successfully effects direct payments to beneficiaries 

Meanwhile, Dunkerly said as part of the insourcing of social grant payments, SASSA initiated a process of effecting direct transfers, which are direct deposits that are paid into personal bank accounts, during the January payment cycle as a test. 

She said the testing has gone well for the January, February and March payment cycles. 

“We also did a pilot project with the February payment cycle to pay pay directly into a 100 000 SASSA card accounts. They come out of the 5.7 million who transact in the national payment system but we wanted to make sure that we would be able to do the direct deposits and that pilot has gone successfully.  

“We were able to deposit the money into the accounts and people were able to access their money so it opens the door for us to go ahead and do the direct deposits for the 5.7 million beneficiaries,” she said. 

She said the 5.7 million beneficiaries are those that would eventually be migrated to the new SASSA/SAPO card in terms of the agreement that has been signed in December. 

Dunkerly said, however, that beneficiaries still had a choice to choose to have their money paid into their personal bank accounts. 

“One of the concerns that we did obviously raise to the committee is that…our intention is to deposit directly into the accounts of 5.7 million beneficiaries from March but CPS has raised, and I understand that although these are Grindrod bank accounts, the technology that underpins them is provided by Net1, which is a holding company of CPS.

“Now CPS has alerted us to the fact that if we were to do all 5.7 million in one month, that we may be introducing a systemic risk into the transfers. So we are engaging with them as well as with the Reserve Bank to see how else this can be addressed so that it does not impact on any one of the beneficiaries.” 

SASSA ensures VBS curatorship matter won’t affect beneficiaries 

On Sunday, the South African Reserve Bank announced that VBS Mutual Bank would be placed under curatorship after the bank experienced liquidity challenges over the past 18 months. 

Dunkerly said SASSA was in consultation with the banking industry to ensure its beneficiaries are not affected by the development. 

“With the media reports about VBS Mutual Bank – where we have 155 beneficiaries who receive their money – being placed under curatorship, we actually did approach the Banking Association [of South Africa] just to make sure that that was not going to pose a threat to the beneficiaries who have accounts there. We have been assured that they are watching the situation closely and that there is no threat whatsoever to our beneficiaries.” – SAnews.gov.za

Source: South Africa News Agency

Co-operatives and small business enterprises in KwaZulu-Natal will receive R57 million from the provincial Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (EDTEA).

Economic Development MEC Sihle Zikalala said his department had set aside the monies for the implementation of the Radical Agrarian Socio-Economic Transformation (RASET) programme, which sought to improve the participation by small scale farmers in the lucrative food production value chain.

He was addressing delegates during a summit on entrepreneurship organised by the Durban University of Technology on Wednesday.

RASET is an economic transformation programme by the government of KwaZulu-Natal.

It strives to solve the socio-economic problem of rural and township communities in particular by empowering them to create their own wealth in order to provide jobs, eradicate poverty and redress economic imbalances. 

“We have also forged a partnership with the SPAR supermarket group where SPAR will provide technical and back office support for rural shops which also serve as pension and social grant pay points.

“Our District Development Agencies have also been allocated a revolving facility which will enable them to pay farmers who bring them produce for the RASET programme. Details of how our emerging farmers are going to benefit from this funding will be unveiled during our budget speech,” MEC Zikalala said.

He said the department was also negotiating with all KwaZulu-Natal TVET colleges to provide to Small, Medium and Micro-sized Enterprises (SMMEs) and cooperatives with training in areas such as business management and cooperative governance.

“During the current financial year, the department’s target is to have 1 166 small enterprises benefiting from this partnership agreement.

“We are also negotiating with KZN Small Enterprise Development Agency (Seda) to provide mentorship support programme to these SMMEEs and we are optimistic that the agreements will be reached soon,” MEC Zikalala said. – SAnews.gov.za

Source: South Africa News Agency

The High Level Panel on Water (HLPW) says a fundamental change in the way the world manages the resource is necessary if the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly goal 6, are to be achieved.

“Whoever you are, whatever you do, wherever you live, we urge you get involved and contribute to meeting this great challenge: safe water and sanitation for all, and our water resources managed sustainably. Make every drop count, it’s time for action,” members of the panel said in an open letter released in New York on Wednesday.

“Making Every Drop Count: An Agenda for Water Action” presents many recommendations as part of an outcome report from the panel, which was convened in January 2016 by the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres.

“World leaders now recognise that we face a global water crisis and that we need to reassess how we value and manage water. The panel’s recommendations can help to safeguard water resources and make access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation a reality for all,” Guterres said. 

The panel’s report found that the water crisis has many dimensions.

According to the report, 40% of the world’s people are affected by water scarcity, with as many as 700 million people at risk of being displaced by intense water scarcity by 2030.

The report also reveals that more than two billion people are compelled to drink unsafe water and more than 4.5 billion people do not have safely managed sanitation services.

“Women and girls suffer disproportionately when water and sanitation are lacking, affecting health and often restricting work and education opportunities.  Eighty percent of wastewater is discharged untreated into the environment and water-related disasters account for 90 percent of the 1,000 most devastating natural disasters since 1990,” the report said.

World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said that the ecosystems on which life itself is based, including our food security, energy sustainability, public health, jobs and cities – are all at risk because of how water is managed today.

“The work of this panel took place at the level of heads of state and government because the world can no longer afford to take water for granted,” Kim said.

As part of the recommendations to address these challenges, the panel is advocating for evidence-based policies and innovative approaches at the global, national and local level to make water management and water and sanitation services attractive for investment and more disaster resilient.

Water infrastructure investment 

The panel called for policies that will allow for at least a doubling of water infrastructure investment in the next five years.

The panel’s report sets forth a new approach to catalyse change and build partnerships and cooperation, outlining why an integrated and inclusive approach that draws in sectors like agriculture and other stakeholders, such as city mayors, is needed. 

The report also made the case that ways of working between, for example, governments, communities, the private sector and researchers are essential.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said: “We have a single opportunity, to change the narrative on water, by acting timeously in pursuit of a more promising future, in a better world, which should never face the scenario of the last single drop of water, in our lifetime and for generations to come.”

The HLPW consists of 11 Heads of State and a Special Advisor. The core focus of the panel is the commitment to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, SDG 6, as well as to contribute to the achievement of the other SDGs that rely on the development and management of water resources. – SAnews.gov.za

Source: South Africa News Agency

The Minister of Women in the Presidency, Bathabile Dlamini, says the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) and UN member states have an obligation to advance gender equality and the empowerment of women. 

“The CSW must have tangible, action oriented outcomes, which bring about real change in the lives of women and girls,” Minister Dlamini said at the opening of 62nd Session of the CSW at the UN Headquarters in New York.

The session, which opened on Monday, will run until Friday, 23 March.

The commission, which is attended by representatives of member states, UN entities and NGOs from all regions of the world, is held under the theme ‘Challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls’.

Minister Dlamini said this year’s theme is a subject that has been neglected for far too long, and that gender equality and the empowerment of women should move beyond political rhetoric. 

Despite the harsh realities, the Minister said women and girls in rural areas continue to demonstrate tremendous resilience in the face of multi-dimensional poverty, inequality and the struggle for a better life. 

“Despite global efforts, women and girls in rural areas continue to face structural barriers, patriarchy, gender inequality, socio-economic deprivation, violence, and exclusion from leadership and decision-making. They face multiple intersecting forms of discrimination including in relation to inheritance, harmful practices, child marriage and human trafficking,” Minister Dlamini said.

The Minister said South Africa’s Constitution is founded on the values of human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms, non-racialism and non-sexism.

“We remain committed to fast-track the implementation of our obligations to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment as outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030, the African Union’s Agenda 2063, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) gender and development protocol, as well as our own National Development Plan 2030,” the Minister said.

She also used the occasion to highlight strides made by South Africa to ensure women’s economic inclusion and expand access to productive resources, including land. 

“We are supporting women farmers and cooperatives to broaden women’s access across the agriculture value chain and other economic sectors. This is in line with South Africa’s programme of radical socio-economic transformation, as reaffirmed by our President Cyril Ramaphosa in his recent State of the Nation Address. This includes the expropriation of land without compensation,” she said. – SAnews.gov.za

Source: South Africa News Agency

Regular eye tests can help you stop glaucoma in its tracks, says Gauteng Health MEC Dr Gwen Ramokgopa as the Health Department commemorates World Glaucoma Week.

Glaucoma is a group of diseases that result in damage to the eye’s optic nerve. Glaucoma is generally related to a high eye pressure. Damage to the optic nerve initially results in a decreased vision and may eventually lead to blindness.

“Vision lost as a result of glaucoma usually cannot be recovered. Early diagnosis and careful lifelong treatment can help prevent further visual damage. If you have been diagnosed with glaucoma, ensure you use your medications correctly. See your eye surgeon in order to monitor the disease,“ said MEC Ramokgopa.

Glaucoma Week is being observed from 11 – 17 March, during which the department aims to create awareness on the importance of eye care, regular eye testing and preventative care.

“In its early stages, glaucoma usually has no symptoms, which is what makes it so dangerous. By the time you notice problems with your sight, the disease has progressed to the point that irreversible vision loss has already occurred and additional loss may be difficult to stop,” said MEC Ramokgopa.

Glaucoma facts 

Glaucoma occurs in people of all ages, from children to older adults. It is more likely to develop in people who are over 35 years old, very near-sighted, diabetic, with enlarged cataract and or eye disease.

It may also be inherited, as relatives of glaucoma patients are more likely to develop glaucoma themselves.

According to the Health Department, elevated intraocular pressure is considered the most important risk factor. However, glaucoma may occur even with normal reading.

A disturbed vascular regulation of the vessels supplying blood to the optic nerve head in the eye can result in glaucoma.

People with low blood pressure or general circulatory disturbances are particularly at risk. A history of glaucoma in the family requires regular examinations at all ages, not just from the age of 40 onwards.

The Gauteng Health Department said in the previous financial year it performed a total of 678 glaucoma surgeries. Of these surgeries, 597 were on adults and 61 on children.

“Have your eyes tested every second year. Early detection, correct medication and proper management will prevent blindness due to glaucoma,” advised MEC Ramokgopa. – SAnews.gov.za