Issued by: Ministry for Welfare and Population Development
3 July 1996
With information on social grants already having been loaded into one database - including that of beneficiaries of the former homelands - the Department of Welfare and Population Development has moved a step further in its major clean-up drive towards attaining a social security under one national transverse computer system.
In line with the recommendations of the White Paper for Social Welfare, the move signals a break with the past which was riddled by discrimination and fragmentation.
Inheriting 14 different administrative systems has not been an easy task for the Department and its officials who hve consulted broadly with provinces and worked together to devise a strategy aimed at ending decades of chaos.
During the first phase, beneficiaries' indentifications, amounts and types of grants received were carefully screened, resulting in some being referred to provinces for further verification. Some beneficiaries' IDs could not be confirmed. The completion of the loading data into one database - our first phase - is a culmination of daily planning sessions, a series of meetings with national and provincial government ministers and officials which began last year.
The second phase, soon to be implemented and monitored from province to province will entail the final verification and clearing of data by the Department of Welfare and Population Development, in consultation with the Home Affairs.
Despite problems encountered in the process, leading to prescribed deadlines not to be met by the Department of Welfare and Population Development, much progress was made in the former Bophuthatswana and Qwaqwa where the system is already up and running.
Issued by: Welfare and Population Development Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi
Enquiries: Brian Sokutu, Spokesman Telephone: (012) 328-4600 or (021) 454-011