Sassa misses court deadline on grants
THE SOCIAL Security Agency of South Africa (Sassa) missed the deadline to file papers to the Constitutional Court to explain its failure to prepare itself to take over payment of social grants to millions of beneficiaries next month.
This comes after the Concourt last week issued a directive to Sassa to explain, among other issues, who was responsible for deciding that Sassa could not immediately take over the payment of grants and pensions after this month, and when that person became aware of that fact. The court gave Sassa until 4pm yesterday to file its papers.
Sassa spokesperson Paseka Letsatsi failed to respond to detailed questions on whether the social grants agency would meet the 4pm deadline. The contract between Sassa and pensions and social grants service provider, Cash Paymaster Services, comes to an end on March 31, and there have been fears that grants will not be paid from April 1.
A TASK team of ministers has decided that talks between the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) and Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) must be started afresh, and only once the National Treasury agreed to entertain talks with a single bidder.
This has emerged from court papers filed by Sassa in response to an application by Freedom Under Law, the second rights group to petition the Constitutional Court over the welfare grant crisis.
Sassa disclosed that the task team ordered it to prepare a request to the National Treasury to allow a deviation from normal public finance rules that would legitimise 11th hour negotiations with CPS.
The drafting of the request will be overseen by senior advocate Wim Trengove and will then be submitted at the instruction of Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini, according to Wiseman Magasela, who served as acting chief executive of Sassa last week.
The task team comprises Dlamini, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe and the ministers of state security, telecommunications, home affairs and science and technology.
Magasela confirmed in the submission to the court that Sassa and CPS had, in three days of talks earlier this month, agreed in principle to a new two-year contract to allow the Net1 subsidiary to continue disbursing more than 17 million pensions and welfare grants every month.
However, the ministerial task team “decided that the current negotiations with CPS should be terminated and fresh negotiations should start only if and when the National Treasury gave its prior written approval for a deviation”.
Dlamini and Gordhan have disagreed in recent weeks as to who should take over grant payment after March 31, when the current contract with CPS expires.
Dlamini maintains that CPS is the only sound option and that she would expect Gordhan to make an exception to the rules and approve the contract, though no other company was allowed to bid.
The National Treasury has indicated it could not, and Dlamini’s critics have accused her of engineering a crisis that puts at risk the poor to force the embattled finance minister into a corner.