Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Pretoria on Friday over fears that South Africa's welfare agency may be unable to make benefit payments to millions of poor people. The march was led by Mmusi Maimane, the leader of the main opposition Democratic Alliance party, and follows weeks of uncertainty over grants to more than 17 million people.
It is feared that payments will come to a halt after the government failed to announce a new company to process them when the current distributor's contract ends on March 31."In less than three weeks' time, millions of South Africans stand to lose their social grants if an urgent solution to the grant payment crisis is not found," said Maimane. "A third of our people depend on grants to survive," he added as he addressed the march which was joined by disabled people and mothers with young children.