Dlamini and Sassa CEO still to meet
Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini and Sassa CEO Thokozani Magwaza have not yet met to start working on a plan to ensure payment of social grants after Cash Paymaster Services’s contract expires in 12 months, agency insiders say.
Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini and South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) CEO Thokozani Magwaza have not yet met to start planning the payment of social grants after Cash Paymaster Services’s contract expires in 12 months, agency insiders have told Business Day.
Neither Sassa nor the ministry would respond to questions about what progress they were making with the plan that was demanded by the Constitutional Court.
It appears that little is likely to happen before the April grant distributions are completed as Sassa’s efforts are focused on ensuring 11-million recipients get their grants without interruption between Saturday and early next week.
Sassa has announced that grants will be available from ATMs and merchants on Saturday and from 9,000 paypoints across SA from Monday.
There is concern that the uncertainty about the endMarch deadline of the CPS contract will result in unusually large numbers of recipients wanting to access grants from ATMs and merchants at the weekend rather than waiting for the paypoints on Monday.
One Sassa executive said this could put strain on the system.
In its rebuke of the near collapse of the payment system, the court ordered that Sassa and CPS ensure payment of social grants for 12 months from April 1 2017. And in a bid to avert a repetition of the failure of the previous ruling — when Dlamini assured the court Sassa would be able to take the contract inhouse — the court has ordered the minister and Sassa to file quarterly progress reports.
The order also made provision for the involvement of the auditor-general to evaluate the interim contract’s roll-out.
It also looks as though the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) will be keeping a close watch on developments.
On Wednesday, Scopa said it had visited the South African Post Office “to determine whether the engagements it has been having with Sassa on the disbursement of grants has resulted in any concrete plans”.
After the visit, Scopa said it was satisfied with the manner in which the Post Office articulated its capacity and state of readiness for disbursing grants. Post Office CEO Mark Barnes said he was delighted to have been given the opportunity to present the elements of a possible intergovernmental solution.
Scopa also wanted to get to the bottom of the work streams, which appear to be operating in parallel to Sassa employees who are working on an in-house distribution system that would be supported by the Post Office and the banks.