Grant aunt:
Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini faced MPs over the grant payments fiasco on Wednesday in Parliament. The Treasury said last night it would facilitate a technical meeting between the state’s grants agency and the Post Office.
The Treasury will take the lead in breaking the deadlock between the South African Post Office (Sapo) and the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) in their efforts to plan grant provisions for 2018.
The impasse may have a profound effect on grant provision to more than 17-million beneficiaries for 2018. The contract is reportedly worth R4.6bn to Cash Paymaster Services.
The political heads of both entities, Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini and Telecommunications and Postal Services Minister Siyabonga Cwele as well as Treasury director-general Dondo Mogajane met in Parliament on Wednesday evening to update the house on their meetings.
The joint committee meeting of the standing committee on public accounts and the portfolio committee on social develop- ment directed Sapo and Sassa to hold emergency meetings on Tuesday evening on the matter and update them on Wednesday. Mogajane said the Treasury would facilitate a technical meeting between Sassa and Sapo with the support of the Reserve Bank.
“Since yesterday and after the four meetings we had discussions on, it is unfortunate that the two parties have not found each other in agreeing on the role that Sapo should play on grants administration,” he said.
Mogajane said after Tuesday evening’s meetings, the Treasury would step in to review the status of the matter and weigh in on the way forward. He said the technical teams of Sassa and Sapo had not met on the technical work of the Centre for Science and Industrial Research into the matter.
“Sapo did not know formally that they did not qualify on the basis of the other three criteria. We discussed the matter and Sassa forwarded a letter to Sapo to clarify matters. We asked Sapo to indicate why they think they would be better placed to do functions other than those they were handed,” he said.
Mogajane told the committees that Sassa had told Sapo that while it was capable of providing grant payment integration through biometrics, it could not handle card production and banking services.
“We met officials yesterday and today. The first meeting was in the afternoon yesterday and the second was later. We also have an interest in the matter. We had to establish the facts. At no point did Sapo have a fuller understanding of why they were disqualified on the other three matters,” said Mogajane.
Public accounts committee member for the DA, Tim Brauteseth, said the Treasury needed to work overtime to stymie any person that looked to frustrate the process.
Committee member for the ANC Vincent Smith said Sassa could not realistically meet its deadlines if it relied on open tender, as time was not on the agency’s side.
Dlamini pleaded with the MPs to give the Treasury an opportunity to review the situation so that Sapo would be empowered to state its case and test its systems. She denied conspiring to stonewall Sapo, saying she had to ensure it was a capable service provider.