Post office ‘can pay grants’
Sapo CE tells MPs Post Bank can meet 2018 deadline
THE South African Post Office (Sapo) has insisted that it is more than able to take over the payment of social grants despite social development minister Bathabile Dlamini stating the contrary before parliament.
Dlamini, the leadership of the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) and the post office came head-to-head before MPs yesterday over the latter’s readiness to take over the payment of social grants from Cash Paymaster Services (CPS).
The two entities were led by their political principals in Dlamini and her telecommunications and postal services counterpart, Siyabonga Cwele.
Dlamini announced ahead of the meeting on Monday that Sassa would issue a tender for three of the four services required for grant payments because the entity of the Post Office, the Post Bank, was not capable of making the payments.
But this was dismissed by post office chief executive Mark Barnes during a joint meeting of the social development portfolio committee and Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa).
Barnes assured the committees that the entity was more than ready to roll out the payment of social grants by April next year through its Post Bank. This followed a Constitutional Court ruling which ordered the phasing out of CPS.
Sassa and Sapo have now been ordered by the two committees to hold an urgent meeting this week to iron out their differences and come up with a solution to the impasse. Barnes listed a number of capabilities which “dispelled misconceptions about Post Bank capabilities”.
He also reminded MPs that the post office has been involved with the distribution of grants previously so this was nothing new to them.
“Our primary purpose in wishing to assist Sassa is to avoid a duplication of investment. I need to make it clear that we are a designated participant in the national payment system. We perform all our own interbank transactions, clearing and granting recipients full access to all ATMs, retailers and point of sale purchases.
“So, like any autobank card, Post Bank is in a position to provide that service. It was one of the points that we were apparently disqualified on, that we can’t do. We can do it,” Barnes said.
Barnes said the post office can produce the first batch of two million cards eight weeks after the card design has been approved.
He said Sapo is able to settle banking transactions via Standard Bank until Post Bank is awarded a banking licence. Scopa chairman Themba Godi said it was important that the two organisations meet.
“So the long and the short of it is that there has been no agreement between Sassa and the post office since our last meeting last week Tuesday,” Godi said.
“I think so, yes it’s true,” responded Dlamini.
Dlamini said what was important was that the department had gone through a procurement process.
“After that process we were supposed to meet and post office asked for a postponement and thereafter was a letter sent to the CEO of Sassa,” she said.
Cwele said he was not entirely sure why Sassa kept talking about “procurement” when the post office was a state entity like Sassa.
He said the post office was just a “willing organ of state to assist another organ of state”.
“That’s why I’m very cautious about this procurement thing. I don’t see it as procurement. It’s primarily based on intergovernmental agreement. We provide information when it is requested by the project owner.
“What appears to be is a dispute of facts, that’s why then we were hoping have an opportunity at a government level.” Cwele said as early as 2003 the Post Bank was providing social grant payments “partially not fully”.
ANC MP Nyami Booi proposed that President Jacob Zuma should intervene in the matter as neither minister was giving enough information.