The Minister for Social Development, Ms Bathabile Dlamini, will on Wednesday, 30 October, meet and engage with the older persons of Nyanga, Western Cape province, to discuss their socio-economic challenges.
Minister Dlamini has raised a concern about the perceived abuse of older persons by financial companies that sell them financial products they do not need as well as loan sharks that allegedly effect payments from older persons' grant accounts without authorisation.
The department is currently exploring avenues to intervene for older persons where real financial abuse is taking place. The Minister is expected to use the meeting with elder persons to discuss this matter.
The visit to Nyanga comes a week after the first ever Senior Citizens' Parliament, organised by the department and the Gauteng Legislature, was held on 21 October. At the special sitting of the Legislature, older persons appealed to government to assist them with income generating programmes to supplement their grant income.
The Minister is expected also to use the meeting with older persons in Nyanga to encourage older persons to participate in the department's newly launched initiative that links social grant beneficiaries (particularly the care givers of children receiving child support grants) and other vulnerable groups to meaningful socio-economic opportunities.
The meeting with older persons is held under the banner of the Department's Project Mikondzo a service delivery improvement initiative aimed at improving access to the department and its entities' (The South African Social Security Agency and the National Development Agency) services in the poorest wards of the country.
Media is invited to cover the event.
The details are as follows:
Date: 30 October 2013
Place: Nyanga Rugby Stadium
Time: 12h00
Media RSVP
Jaconia Kobue
Cell: 073 026 1111
Thomas Huma
Cell: 072 218 6197
Kgomoco Diseko
Cell: 083 264 1115.
Media inquiries
Lumka Oliphant
Cell: 083 484 8067
E-mail: lumkao@dsd.gov.za
