Contractor based on a ‘lie’
was for CPS to enrol an estimated 9.2-million existing beneficiaries …”
But her statement was false.
Financial model
Rewind to 2012 once more. There was no “requirement” for CPS to enrol only nine million recipients.
Sassa’s projected number of nine million “recipients” was a key metric for the bidders’ financial models. Because the winning bidder would have to pay nine million recipients each month, and its fee would be a multiple of this, bidders needed the number to calculate their costs and revenues.
Nowhere do the tender documents indicate that nine million was the ceiling number of people to be enrolled. This was a separate cost factor.
But it should have been obvious to all bidders — especially CPS, which at the time distributed grants in five provinces — that many more than nine million had to be enrolled.
For example, in the tender documents, bidders’ briefing sessions and public statements, Sassa repeatedly explained that there were about 15-million beneficiaries and about 10-million recipients.
Although these numbers cannot be added together, because some recipients are also beneficiaries, it does follow that more than 15-million people would need to have been enrolled.
Indeed, using Sassa’s own data, which was publicly available at the time of the tender, amaBhungane was able to project that 22-million recipients and beneficiaries had to be enrolled.
Contradictory defences
In March last year, Corruption Watch petitioned the high court to have the R316-million payment reversed. Arguments are still being filed and the case is still to be heard.
According to Corruption Watch, Sassa violated its own procurement procedures and the payment was “irregular and unlawful”. Sassa and CPS deny this in sworn affidavits deposed by Petersen and CPS’s general manager, Nanda Pillay. Belamant confirmed Pillay’s version.
But their explanations are contradictory and repeatedly clash with the evidence, particularly on the subject of child enrolments. Most of the 11.9-million purportedly “extra” enrolments were of children. For example, Petersen correctly concedes that Sassa’s tender included the enrolment of children, but she adds that the SLA did not.
It did, and it was she who signed the document, which explained that every “beneficiary” was to be enrolled, defined as “[bearing] the meaning assigned to it in the [Social Assistance] Act and includes children”.
Pillay says the tender did not require it to enrol children and that CPS did not bid to do so. He is wrong on both counts.
He correctly concedes the contract did “contemplate” child registrations, but claims that “it did not provide for the costing thereof”.
But they both agree that, on June 15 2012, CPS and Sassa met and Petersen decided, as she describes, to vary the contract “to include the excluded number of children and beneficiaries whose grants were collected by procurators”.
The thrust of their statements is false.
The record
Issued back in 2011, Sassa’s tender documents clearly state that children had to be enrolled. “For child support, foster child and care dependency grants, the successful bidder/s must ensure that the biometrics and data relating to the children is also captured.”
Moreover, the minutes of a 2011 bid committee meeting reveal that one member “requested clarity on the Sassa requirement that children also be enrolled”.
“It was indicated to him that, whilst challenges exist with capturing the fingerprint biometric of children, Sassa sought to have a biometric record of children due to the high incidence of fraud in grant applications relating to children.”
And Sassa’s adjudicators for the 2012 bid specifically marked down at least two bidders because “no specific proposal to enrol children for childrelated grants in addition to the primary care giver is provided”.
Despite Pillay’s recent statements to the contrary, CPS’s own 2011 bid indicates it would enrol children. For example, a section discussing enrolment stated: “In cases of child support, foster child and care dependency grants, the children’s fingerprints and details are captured and stored on the card.”
And, during the tender, when Sassa asked CPS to clarify that the cost of enrolment was included in its bid, CPS responded: “We would like to confirm that as per our financial submission, there will be no additional fees charged to Sassa for the following aspects in relation to the bid specification document: … Enrolment fees (Bulk).”
In February 2012, Petersen and Belamant signed the contract and SLA, which unambiguously state that beneficiaries — a definition that “includes children” — and recipients had to be enrolled for the agreed “allinclusive fee”.
Playing card
In this light, Petersen, Belamant and Pillay’s strongest card appears to be wafer-thin.
In the Corruption Watch case, they rely heavily on a document that records the minutes of the June 2012 meeting at which Petersen purportedly decided to vary the contract.
The meeting was held 10 weeks into the contract. CPS had completed a pilot enrolment drive and was reporting back to Sassa officials on its progress and challenges.
In an affidavit, Petersen says of the meeting: “It was thoroughly debated by Sassa officials and representatives from all regions that it would not be prudent to exclude children and beneficiaries whose grants were collected by procurators.” As a result, she claims that “the terms of the [service level agreement] were varied” at the meeting.
This account is not reflected in the minutes.
They are short on detail but record: “At the request of [Petersen], [Belamant] agreed that the payment of costs associated with the enrol- ment of dependents would only be effected at the conclusion of the bulk enrolment process.
“[Petersen] requested an independent report in respect of the costs associated with the enrolment of dependents to be tabled at the conclusion of the bulk enrolment process.”
On the face of it, there was a foregone conclusion that Sassa would pay extra for the enrolment of children. But, as has been established, CPS was contractually bound to enrol all beneficiaries and recipients, including children, under an “all-inclusive fee”.
Therefore, either those at the meeting were wrong or a decision was made before the meeting that, in spite of the requirements in the tender and contracts, CPS should be paid extra, but there is no evidence for this.
But the strength of these minutes as evidence was undermined by Belamant himself because, just five months after the meeting, in November 2012, Net 1’s certified financial records described, as quoted earlier, that CPS had contracted with Sassa to enrol children at no extra cost.
Sub judice
Belamant responded to detailed questions on behalf of Net 1, CPS and Pillay.
Yet he declined to explain the many contradictions between the version laid out in documents from 2011 and 2012 and CPS’s later claim to have done extra work worth R316-million.
He said: “Sassa did not call for the enrolment of dependants in the request for proposals, and there is no way for any bidder to have anticipated this or even the numbers involved, had Sassa included it at the time.
“It is for the court to decide whether or not Sassa followed due process in contracting CPS to enrol the additional beneficiaries and the matter is sub judice.
“We regrettably have to now warn you that we will take legal action against you if you insist on publishing further defamatory statements in respect of CPS, its affiliates or employees.”