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The Portfolio Committee on Science, Innovation and Technology has called on entities like the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to use their expertise to help resolve the challenges related to payment of social grants.
 
The Chairperson, Ms Lusizo Makhubela, said South Africa’s social protection programme has for too long been subjected to resolvable digital and tech-related challenges. “Technology and digitisation should fundamentally transform the state’s good social protection programme to the benefit of the poor people. Resolvable challenges need not be prolonged when South Africa has such advanced government entities who specialise in innovation and science,” the Chairperson said.
 
“Digitisation has the potential to reshape social grant disbursement and that potential has not been leveraged in our country. Collaboration among departments and entities represent a powerful intersection policy and human-centric research and advanced technology.”
 
Ms Makhubela was participating in a media briefing of Parliament’s committees in the Social Services Cluster during which chairpersons brief the media about their portfolios. The briefing occurred in the context of a new Minister of Social Development and the pending move from SASSA yellow grant cards to the Post Bank black cards.
 
Ms Makhubela said South Africa has capability for these digital solutions but is hindered by a silo approach, which fragments the impact government could have in changing the lives of poor South Africans.
 
“Change from yellow SASSA cards to Post Bank black cards should not cause frustration among South Africans; it should be the easiest job. The CSIR has and should provide the technical capability required to build a modern, high speed, secure and sovereign digital state. The CSIR must deploy locally developed biometric systems that could protect public funds while paying to the correct beneficiary. We just need to be careful not to frustrate our country’s progress on account of figure skating around innovative ways of doing things and migrating to the digital age,” concluded Ms Makhubela.

Issued by the Parliamentary Communication Services on behalf of the chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Science, Innovation and Technology, Lusizo Makhubela