The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) now deals with fake news and disinformation targeting the entity and its services almost daily, it says.
This comes amid the mushrooming and rapid spread of fake news about social grants.
SASSA is charged with disbursing social grants to more than 19 million beneficiaries on behalf of the Department of Social Development.
According to the agency, the latest fake reports doing the rounds is that there will be double grant payments in June.
The reports, it states, are untrue and should be rejected with the contempt they deserve.
“We appeal to our beneficiaries not to expect any double payment in June as stated in various fake news reports, particularly on social media platforms,” says Paseka Letsatsi, SASSA national spokesperson.
“In line with the ministry of finance’s policy statement in March, grant increases were announced and came into effect in April, and there will be another increase again in October. Any other increase not announced by credible and relevant authorities should be treated as lies.”
SASSA further cautioned about reports spreading like wildfire that it has announced “new rules could affect your pension” from 10 June, saying this is not an official announcement.
According to SASSA, on 30 April, it announced a verification process only for targeted grant beneficiaries in the May payment run to encourage them to update their information at SASSA offices.
The targeted beneficiaries were those who use alternative forms of identification other than the standard 13-digit South African identity number to receive their social grants. The other targeted beneficiaries include those identified through the bulk means test process, to determine if they have income that flows into other bank accounts not disclosed to SASSA.
“We appeal to our beneficiaries to only rely on credible sources of information on our official social media pages. Before anyone can share any information pertaining to social grants, they must first verify its authenticity to avoid disseminating false information that may cause anxiety and stress to our beneficiaries,” adds Letsatsi.
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