Exploring social assistance administrative challenges at the South African Social Security Agency, KwaZulu-Natal.

Abstract

The social assistance benefits plan in South Africa is the largest portion of the government's desperation and commitment to ease the programme to provide social assistance to eligible citizens of the nation. This study’s main objective was to investigate the administrative challenges experienced by the social assistance systems at SASSA, KZN Region. The study employed qualitative research with explorative research design. The study was undertaken with ten SASSA Regional Managers in the KwaZulu-Natal Region. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with participants who were purposively sampled from the population. The data collected was analysed through thematic analysis. The key findings of the study indicated that there is a connection between the concept of social security and management, because it was used as an accounting tool for the services rendered under grants administration process. Secondly, most key challenges identified included fraud and corruption. Key recommendations were made as follows: there is a need to strengthen the use of technology to improve the social security administrative systems and ease access by the services users. There is a need to align the national policies, government systems and improve stakeholder involvement in addressing these interconnected issues. It is hoped that these findings and recommendations could be used for influencing policies around social security administration processes and improve citizenry participation, so that service users have a voice on the programmes implemented by the government. Furthermore, this study is an important contribution towards efforts aimed at improving service delivery within the South African Social Security Agency.