Sassa shifts burden to the Treasury

Cape Town – The SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) is in an apparent flat panic to make sure 17 million people who rely on social grants get their payouts come April 1.

With only a month to go, Sassa starts negotiations today with current contract holder Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) for a new contract.

The previous contract was declared illegal and invalid by the Consitutional Court in 2013, and Sassa and the department were given a deadline to sort it out.

“Sassa is nowhere near ready to be able to be paying out grants on April 1,” Sassa project manager Zodwa Mvulane told members of parliament.

This left it with no option but to effectively rely on CPS, which wanted to be paid more.

Mvulane said initial indications were that it would have to pay R22 instead of R16 in distribution fees for each of the 17 million recipients.

This meant a budget of up to R3.5 billion was needed, up from the current R2.5 billion, and Sassa was relying on National Treasury to come to the rescue.

MPs on the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) vehemently refused to accept repeated attempts by Sassa to shirk full responsibility for the debacle.

DA MP Tim Brauteseth said the predicament was “selfcreated” as Sassa had been given more than three years to implement another plan.

Asking Treasury for extra funding at this stage was effectively putting a gun to its head.

Economic Freedom Fighters MP Ntombovuyo Mente agreed. “I’m not buying whatever we are getting here.

“Are you going to load an AK47 to Treasury’s head and say give us money?” Mente said.

Mkhuleko Hlengwa said Sassa couldn’t argue that it was a sudden emergency when they’d done nothing to counteract it in three years.

“It’s not a crisis; it’s pure incompetence of the highest order.”

Sassa earlier told MPs that irregular expenditure was up to R1 billion as of January 31.

Director-general of the department of social development Zane Dangor said: “For many of us, CPS was not the preferred option.”

But going with CPS was “precisely to avoid the crisis” on April 1.

Scopa chairperson Themba Godi said Treasury had been left to pick up the pieces and deal with it.

The absence of Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini and Sassa CEO Thokozani Magwaza also drew the ire of the committee.

Dlamini was addressing a press conference in parliament, while Magwaza had called in sick.

“Is he sick because of the magnitude of this or what?” Godi asked, adding that people on a “suicide mission” would pay.

“Honestly, is there a belief that we must accept all of these things? We are not happy; we are extremely unhappy about how Sassa has dealt with this.”

All the MPs said it was a matter of urgency that Dlamini be summoned to parliament to explain herself as it was a political, as well as an administrative, issue. – Denise Williams