Let's hope our leaders keep their word on pensions

The state-owned Postbank and the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) have sought to reassure South Africans that the “glitch” that led to 600,000 pensioners receiving their R2,100 pensions late will never happen again. Let’s hope they’re as good as their word.   

For the impoverished pensioners, this could not have been a bigger disaster. A delay of a week in paying their grants would have left many starving and at the mercy of loan sharks. 

The government blithely said it was a “system glitch” — a phrase more suited to describing a triviality, a mere irritant.   

The administration has a way of using language that seems to minimise the pain it inflicts. Take “load-shedding”, for example — the euphemism used for blackouts in the hope we will think them less devastating than they really are.   

The state needs to consider the dignity of those who depend on it for their very survival

Postbank, which is being prepared to become a state bank, said it “understands the inconvenience and challenges this technical issue poses”. Another trivialising word — inconvenience.  

Communications minister Mondli Gungubele passed the 600,000 pensioners off as “10% of the 5.3-million beneficiaries that are paid their social grants via Postbank”. Social development minister Lindiwe Zulu at least showed some grasp of the situation, conceding to the parliamentary portfolio committee she accounts to that “these technical glitches are threatening the lives and livelihoods of our people”.   

The state needs to consider the dignity of those who depend on it for their very survival. It is not good enough to simply “apologise for the inconvenience caused”.  

That the debacle was allowed to happen in the first place is unacceptable in a democratic society, where accountability is expected of those in public office.  

Gungubele says a new Postbank board will be introduced in two months. An administrator has been appointed in the meantime, and staff have been working around the clock to ensure the mismanagement is not repeated.

Let’s hope, for the sake of our pensioners, that those making promises will keep their word.