ANDILE TSHONA | Why misleading South Africans about Sassa helps no one

We are living in an era where a 60-second TikTok video can travel faster than the truth. That reality places an enormous responsibility on those who command large online audiences. Unfortunately, not everyone exercises that responsibility with care.

One TikTok content creator, who also leads the Pensioners of South Africa (Posa), has built a sizeable following through relentless criticism of the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa). Criticism of government institutions is not only acceptable; it is essential in a constitutional democracy. Citizens have every right to question those in power, demand accountability and campaign for policies they believe will improve people’s lives.

But there is an important distinction between advocacy, misinformation and disinformation. When criticism becomes a vehicle for exaggeration, half-truths and fabricated claims, it ceases to empower the public and instead exploits the fears of the very people it claims to represent. Millions of South Africans rely on social grants to survive.

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For pensioners, persons with disabilities, caregivers and unemployed citizens, uncertainty about grant payments is not merely inconvenient; it is deeply distressing. When influential voices falsely suggest that Sassa is deliberately withholding grant increases, unfairly targeting beneficiaries or acting outside its legal mandate, the consequences are immediate. Beneficiaries rush to local offices seeking answers.

Telephone lines become overwhelmed. Frontline officials are forced to spend valuable time correcting misinformation rather than assisting those who genuinely require services. The greatest victims of misinformation are often the poorest South Africans.

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