Many beneficiaries face significant hardship in meeting review requirements imposed by Sassa.
Image: File
While the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) continues to urge beneficiaries to complete their eLife Certification, many social grant recipients across South Africa report that the portal remains unusable.
Despite Sassa’s claims that initial technical glitches have been resolved, beneficiaries cite consistent failures with facial recognition and one-time pins (OTPs).
IOL has been inundated with emails and calls from beneficiaries nationwide claiming they were unable to complete the mandatory certification process.
The eLife Certification was implemented on March 30, 2026, as a digital verification tool to curb fraud. Beneficiaries who fail to complete the process risk having their grants suspended.
The Oosterhuizen couple, both pensioners, told IOL they had tried to complete the facial recognition option on the portal but to no avail.
“We have been trying since Thursday, April 2, to do the selfie bit but it does not work after trying for 22 times,” they said.
Another pensioner stated they had been attempting to complete the certification since March 30.
“After several attempts, I was able to try to log in to the website to open my profile. The system just kept on loading and never went through to my profile. I have been struggling for three weeks,” the pensioner stated.
Even when users successfully enter their information, the secondary security measures reportedly fail.
“When I used this OTP, they said it was wrong. Then also indicated that the Department of Home Affairs is not available to verify my particulars,” the pensioner said.
IOL reached out to Sassa regarding these concerns. Sassa spokesperson, Andile Tshona, insisted the portal is functional.
“The Sassa portals are working as evidenced by the number of clients who have accessed the online services. As of April 16, 2026, 13,644 (88%) of the 15,499 unique clients who accessed the online verification services via the client portal were successfully verified,” Tshona said.
However, Sassa admitted the system has been working intermittently.
Tshona explained the challenges the agency is facing: “This is due to the dependency of the systems on other entities that the Agency is working with. The other challenge Sassa has is with clients who are still utilising the green ID book. The system is working; it is just that there are downtime issues as outlined,” Tshona said.
robin.francke@iol.co.za
IOL