Reparations payments start

2003-12-23 12:56

Johannesburg - The department of justice and constitutional development on Tuesday announced that it has started the process of the R30 000 once-off payments to victims of apartheid as mandated by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said the government has processed 9691 payments. However, 3846 of them were returned by the banks because bank account numbers supplied by victims were invalid.

Kganyago said the payment of individual reparation grants was an ongoing process. Only those who had applied would be paid their reparations.

The reparations were made under the Promotion National Unity and Reconciliation Act, gazetted on November 2003.

Kganyago said 5683 beneficiaries would paid after all the interested parties have been given the opportunity to make representations about a person who should receive the grant.

Any person who was aggrieved by a decision of the fund administrator regarding the person to whom the reparations grant is to be paid, may make representation in writing, he said.

Kganyago said the representation could be made at any time but not later than 30 calendar days after the notice has been made or displayed at notice boards of all the magistrate's offices.

He said the process would continue until notice was given in the Government Gazette that the President's Fund, from which reparations are paid, will cease to exist.

- SAPA