MTN Business has successfully completed a pilot project to supply 12 branches of the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) with data cards, enabling them to process applications for social grants online.
SASSA is tasked by the Department of Social Development with enhancing the quality of service delivery by ensuring the accessibility of social grants by those who qualify for them across South Africa. These include adult and infant grants, military and veteran grants as well as administering the social relief fund for the poor.
Solly Mokgohloa, SASSA Senior Manager: ICT, says the agency's operations in the province were severely hindered by the lack of landline infrastructure, particularly in the rural areas.
"It was therefore decided to launch a pilot programme with MTN, where connectivity could be provided to 12 sites. The aim of the pilot was to analyse whether 3G would be a viable option to connect the sites to our head office, as well as examine the costs involved and the process of getting each site up and running," he says.
Muzi Dlamini, MTN Business' National Sales Manager: Government, says applications to the SASSA for social grants were previously done manually as there was no connectivity in those areas. This significantly prolonged the process of authorising grants to citizens.
"With the MTN data cards, each office could connect to the SASSA backend system, called Socpen, where each application is verified and the system is then able to provide an answer back to the office making the request on whether the applicant's request for a grant was approved or not," he says.
While the manual application process could take as long as three months, SASSA wanted to complete the application process within a day.
Dlamini says the solution was rolled out across the 12 sites in August 2007. Installations took about 30 minutes each and offices could begin filing applications to Socpen immediately.
"The first office captured eight applications and provided a response within the first two hours of going live. In the next six months, the offices carried out over 25 000 applications," he says.
Mokgohloa says the result of the pilot were conclusive for the SASSA.
"The technology enables the SASSA to fulfil its mandate of 'paying the right social grant to the right person at the right time and place.' Furthermore, the data costs from each office were very affordable, making the solution far more cost-effective than having cables laid to each of the offices. The solution, in comparison, also required little maintenance," he says.
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