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If you receive a social grant from a cash pay point or the Post Office, you have until the end of December to re-register on the new biometric-based payment system to receive a new South African Social Service Agency (SASSA) payment card.

You can use your SASSA card to get your social grant from an ATM, a cash pay point or a retail store.

According to Minister of Social Development, Minister Bathabile Dlamini, SASSA started the process of verifying and reregistering beneficiaries in March and will complete the process by the end of March 2013.

Building a university and hosting the square kilometre array (SKA) in the Northern Cape will boost economic development in the province, President Jacob Zuma said during his visit to Carnarvon in the Northern Cape, where the SKA’s first seven telescope dishes have been erected and put into operation.

After years of waiting, residents of Elliotdale in the Eastern Cape are finally proud owners of new houses that will replace the old mud structures they have called home over the years. Eastern Cape Human Settlements MEC Helen Sauls-August handed over 200 houses in the first phase of the Elliotdale Rural Sustainable Human Settlements Project recently to beneficiaries of the government housing subsidy grant. These people fall in the income bracket of between R3 500 and R7 500 per month.

Desperation drove Jessica Marobane to call the Office of the President on 18 September asking for funding to study to be a pilot. The cost for the training of becoming a pilot amounted to R408 763.50. She applied for bursaries at different institutions without success. Since her single mother, Dorothy, could not afford to pay her tuition fees, Jessica decided to contact the toll-free Presidential Hotline.

Know your Ministers

Thanks to the Reading for Redemption Campaign, offenders at some prisons are reading books and dis- covering the pleasures of reading and learning.

Know your Ministers

In June 2012, Sibusiso Joel Ndebele became Minister of Correctional Services. This came after serving three years as the National Minister of Transport. Before then, from 2004 to 2009, he served a term as the Premier of KwaZulu-Natal.

Know your Ministers

President Jacob Zuma has made more changes to Cabinet following Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma’s resignation to take up her position as chair of the African Union Commission in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Youth matters

South Africa recently honoured its youth at the Sefako Makgatho presidential guesthouse for their determination and efforts to improve the lives of the less fortunate.

Youth matters

About 6 000 students who received bursaries from the Free State provincial government now have laptops. In awarding these laptops, Premier Ace Magashule fulfilled the promise he made during his State of the Province Address in March to give all bursary holders laptops.

Eskom made every effort to impress at their annual Business Investment Competition (BIC) Awards Gala Dinner held in Gauteng recently. The competition recognises and rewards the bravery and perseverance of small businesses with the potential to stimulate the entrepreneurial market space in South Africa.