Dear Minister, Ms Lindiwe Zulu

I don’t have your direct e-mail but hope this mail will reach you. I applaud the work that you and the team in the department are doing, especially on allocating special days for receipts of different categories of grants. However, if shopping centers and transport networks are not cleared of us (all of us who clog these spaces), this intervention makes very little impact on the elderly and disability group, and I think it adds more frustration.

I’ve always wanted to ask you this. As you prepare for Level 3 of the lockdown and still in Level 4, can you further assist our elderly and disable population to have exclusive or priority entry to shops on the days they receive their grants. A regulation/direction should be passed that no one who is not in this category must be allowed in the store while there is an elderly person in the queue. Even if this is a national encouragement to many of us to stay home and avoid shopping on these days, to give space and dignity to our elders and disability group. This will go a long way in quickly clearing the elders who are vulnerable to Covid in congested spaces. There are supermarkets who already, before the pandemic, give them dedicated hours on special days, I’m sure this can be expanded to two days in the fight against the virus. I’m sure we can start seeing this in the next month.

Secondly, the frustration is that, on now allocated dates, monthly shop specials are cut off and prices rise, sometimes above the normal price. They loose out while their grants are eaten up by escalations. I’m sure in collaboration with Department of Trade and Industry, business can be asked to keep specials and normal prices until after grants payments.

I hope you find this well.

Regards

Letlhage
letlhage@icloud.com