Post Office gets a deal to pay grants

Agreement subject to cost effectiveness.

Sassa and Sapo sign an implementation protocol for the latter to provide services to Sassa.

Atentative deal has been struck between the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) and the South African Post Office (Sapo) over the payment of social grants.

Yesterday, briefing parliament’s standing committee on public accounts and its portfolio committee on social development, chairman of the interministerial committee (IMC) tasked with social security and Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe said Sassa and Sapo signed an implementation protocol, which will allow Sapo to provide services to Sassa.

It will be subject to cost effectiveness. “This protocol forms the foundation for the signing of a further detailed collaborative agreement between Sassa and Sapo with the detailed project plan which will be submitted to the IMC by December 6, 2017 [and] to the Constitutional Court by December 8, 2017,” Radebe said.

The protocol, he added, would allow Sapo to – depending on a cost benefit analysis – provide Sassa with a corporate control account, special disbursement accounts, card body production, distribution and the loading of new beneficiaries on the system.

The Sassa contract with Cash Paymaster Services comes to an end on March 31, 2018. The Constitutional Court declared the contract illegal, giving Sassa and the social development department until April 1 this year to bring on board a new service provider.

However, Sassa did not find a new service provider and failed to conclude an agreement with Sapo.

The IMC was called on to intervene following a deadlock in negotiations between Sassa and Sapo.

The ministers agreed on a hybrid mode, meaning private banks as well as the Post bank would be involved in disbursing grants.–