BotswanaPost�s social benefits contract extended
Pauline Dikuelo | Friday July 8, 2016 15:44
This comes after the government through the Department of Social Services gave BotswanaPost an extension of two months to continue with the disbursement after it surfaced that a private company, Sandulela Telecom Botswana which won the tender was not ready for the take over.
Sandulela was expected to take over the disbursement of social benefits cash allowances for up to 20,000 beneficiaries in Lobatse and the Southern District from BotswanaPost effective July 2016.
The services include monthly disbursement of social benefits for old pensioners, World War II veterans, destitute people and disability allowances.
BotswanaPost general manager for South, Georginah Dennison confirmed to BusinessWeek that they have been given an extension to disburse the allowances, but could not disclose any further information.
“It is true that we have been given the months of July and August to continue with the disbursement of social benefits in Lobatse and the Southern District,” she said.
The 14 Post offices in Lobatse and Southern District include Lobatse, Woodhall, Kanye, Moshupa, Mmathethe, Digawana, Khakhea, Mabule, Mabutsane, Sedibeng, Mahikana, Pitsane, Goodhope, Mmasekou and Jwaneng. Managing Director of Sandulela, Percy Radikola said the delay for the take over was caused by a miscalculated time of enrolment.
“Initially we thought that we will be done with the enrolment of the beneficiaries by end of June,” he said, “but unfortunately we are still going around villages enrolling them because you can find that where we estimated to take two days at times we take a week as most of the beneficiaries are always not available.”
However, Radikola assured that they will be done with the enrolment by the end of July, as they are 60% through. He said they have employed about 120 youth on permanent basis, who will be servicing beneficiaries around villages in the Southern District every month end.
“We believe in empowering people through increasing value chain added services, hence why we will be deploying people in the Kgotla to disburse money and also the merchant stores in the same villages so that beneficiaries can access their money even after month end,” he added.
Sandulela is a subsidiary of South African-based Sandulela Telecom International, which was founded by Nkululeko Mvulana. Locally, the company is a distributor of retail and wholesale of prepaid simcards and virtual airtime for Mascom, Orange and beMOBILE.