Despite establishing additional Social Relief of Distress grant application channels, Sassa said its systems were overwhelmed and battling to deal with the traffic.
South African Gov via Twitter
On Monday, hopeful applicants for the R350 were unable to make their applications as the website was down. A direct chat service and Sassa's Facebook Messenger channel, introduced on Friday, was also down. “The system is a bit slow because of the high volume of people who are trying to access our platforms at the same time,” he told TimesLIVE.Since the application process went live on Friday, hopeful applicants have had to deal with system glitches. On Friday, Sassa said the first day of applications for the special so-called Covid-19 grant got off to a slow start due to excessive traffic on its website.
In a statement, Sassa said anyone still experiencing technical difficulties with WhatsApp or the website is reminded that they still have the whole of August to apply to receive their August payments.