Minister ‘sets up’ court
IT’S A BID TO DODGE BLAME IF GRANTS AREN’T PAID ON TIME ConCourt wants answers by Monday to questions sent to Sassa on Wednesday.
The social development department’s approach to the Constitutional Court to try and get it to rubber-stamp the handling of the social grant payment blunder is an attempt to set the court against the poor masses, who might be affected by a negative ruling, a political analyst says.
Political analyst Ralph Mathekga said yesterday it was shocking that Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini wanted the court to accept Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) as the grants payment service provider, when the court had declared its previous contract to be invalid.
“Why on earth do they want to continue with a company that is a liability and whose contract was proved to be irregularly awarded by the same court?” he asked.
The analyst concluded that the reason must be that the department wanted the beneficiaries to blame the court if they did not get their grants on April 1.
“They are setting up the court for failure and that is not good,” he added.
Dlamini has been sharply criticised by opposition parties, parliamentary committees and the ANC’s leftist allies for the blunder that puts 17 million social grant beneficiaries at risk of not getting their payouts on April 1 because the government failed to secure a new service provider timeously.
The South Africa Security Agency (Sassa) also did not come through on its undertaking to do the job itself.
But throughout the debacle the minister has assured all and sundry that the beneficiaries will get their grants on April 1.
However, she is pinning her hopes on the Constitutional Court approving a new contract with CPS.
The court wants answers by Monday to questions sent to Sassa last Wednesday.
It wants Sassa to account for its failure to take over the payout of social grants next month as promised.
The court has also ordered the agency to give details about its extended contract with CPS, who decided that the agency would not be able to take over the task of paying out grants and why the court had not been informed of that decision.
Sassa also has to give details of the agreement it reached with CPS and whether steps were taken to comply with procurement law regarding competitive bidding.
The court also wants to know whether Sassa had any objections to the independence mechanism that were in place.
Sassa and the minister will have to supply answers before the court will decide whether to give the green light for a new CPS contract.
Why continue with a company that is a liability?