New pleas in Sassa saga
IN A last-ditch effort to rescue the grants payment fiasco, the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) wants the auditor-general and public protector to oversee the new contract.
This is contained in the government agencies heads of argument that were provided ahead of tomorrow’s court battle.
In the papers, the agency argues that while the auditorgeneral and public protector oversee the new contract with Cash Paymaster Services (CPS), the Constitutional Court should only see the papers 20 days after signing.
Yesterday there was still confusion about whether Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini and Sassa had filed papers to answer questions regarding the CPS matter. The department had not filed its responses at the Constitutional Court in Joburg when the offices closed just after 4.30pm.
Judiciary spokesperson Nathi Mncube said Sassa had filed papers electronically but declined to comment on whether they were the answers or the acting CEO’s answering affidavit.
Last week, the court ordered Sassa to explain why it could not take over the payment of grants at the end of the month and also wanted to know how long the department knew it would be unable to do so.
The contract with CPS was found to be illegal in 2014.
The department will be in court tomorrow following an application by the Black Sash, which argues that the court should allow Sassa to continue its relationship with CPS.
The civic group has also asked the Constitutional Court to reinstate its supervisory jurisdiction over Sassa, after it discharged its oversight in November 2015.
The papers also indicate that a memorandum given to the ministerial task team indicates that “it would be appropriate for the National Treasury to allow Sassa to deviate provided that it contracts with CPS for no longer than the time it reasonably requires to appoint a new contractor by a competitive bidding process”.
Dlamini said, on the advice in the memo, the department had made a new request to Treasury to approve a contract with CPS. Sassa says the court must not be part of the new negotiations because “it does not have all the pertinent information before it”.
“The new negotiations with CPS, if authorised by the National Treasury, like the negotiations earlier this month, are likely to be very complex because the subject matter of any eventual agreement will depend on a wide range of variables and interactions between them and the parties.” But Sassa concedes that negotiations with CPS might not lead to a contract. “The new negotiations with CPS may or may not lead to a contract,” the papers state.
Sassa wants the court to order that in an interim contract between the department and CPS, the company should not be allowed to use the personal data of 10 million grant recipients for nothing other than the payment of their money.
Sixty days after the interim contract, CPS must then file its “audited statement of expenses incurred, the income received and the net profit earned” during the contract period. Once this information has been received, Sassa will then have to get an independent verification of the audited statements.
“The minister and Sassa must file reports on affidavit with the court by no later than 4pm on Wednesday March 22, 2017, on the steps they have taken, the steps they will take, and when they take each such future step, to ensure that the payment of all social grants is made when they fall due after March 31, 2017,” the paper states.
Once the interim contract has been approved the department will file quarterly updates to the court on how it will pay grants at the end of the CPS contract.
Social Development spokesperson Lumka Oliphant and Sassa spokesperson Paseka Letsatsi did not respond to inquiries on whether the responses were filed or not.