Concourt ruling on grant tenders brings relief to ‘excluded’ CPS

THE Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) bid to continue distributing social grants got a major boost when the Constitutional Court ruled that they were eligible to tender for any contracts by the Department of Social Development.

The ruling on Friday was made after CPS made an interlocutory application to the Concourt on February 7, asking it to explain its judgment on March 17, which declared their contract with Sassa as “illegal and invalid”.

The court then ordered Sassa to advertise for a new service provider.

This week, the Concourt said it did not mean that CPS should be excluded in any tenders to distribute social grants.

“In view of the fact that CPS’S eligibility to take part in future tender processes was not an issue in the application in which judgment was handed down by this court on March 17 2017, the judgment did not purport to deal with that issue.”

In its order, the Concourt said: “It is declared that the applicant, Cash Paymaster Services, is not prohibited by the court’s judgment and order of March 17, from participating in the tender for the provision of cash payment services or social assistance of the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa).”

Yesterday CPS chief executive Herman Kotze was elated with the court’s judgment.

He said he had decided to lodge the application in the Concourt after there was a misinterpretation of its judgment.

He said there were a section of people in social security agency circles who interpreted the judgment to mean that the CPS was barred from participating in any tenders offered by the Department of Social Development.

“In the middle of January, Sassa advertised a tender asking for a service provider to distribute cash payments to social grant beneficiaries.

“It was on this basis that we approached the Constitutional Court to get clarification on whether we could submit our bid,” Kotze added.

He said the Concourt had now given them a green light to submit their bid before the closing date on March 7.

According to Kotze, the tender was to provide cash payments to social grant beneficiaries at 10 000 pay points in mostly rural areas of South Africa – where people do not have access to ATMS.

He said most of the 2.9 million people received old age pensions.

Adding to CPS’S relief, the SA Post Office (Sapo), which will distribute social grants from April 1, has decided not to oppose Sassa’s application for the CPS contract to be extended for six months.

On February 8, Sassa asked the Concourt to extend the CPS contract on the grounds that they have all the facilities to distribute cash payments to the rural communities in the country.

Initially, Sapo had opposed the application but their chief executive, Mark Barnes, has since rescinded that decision.

In his affidavit submitted to the Concourt on February 19, Barnes said it was just a misunderstanding between the parties involved in the matter.

“The cash-in-transit service is one which Sassa has put out to tender and which is not, at this stage, a service that Sapo is providing to the beneficiaries.

Sassa has published a tender in which it seeks interested parties to tender for cash-in-transit payments of grants to qualifying beneficiaries.

“Sapo supports Sassa’s application that it has brought to this court regarding the issue pertaining to cash-in-transit payments. The cash-intransit service affects approximately 2.9 million beneficiaries,” Barnes said.

“It is important from Sapo’s perspective to stress that it is being requested and is not an extension of the contract between CPS and Sassa at all.

“What is being requested is an orderly phasing-out of CPS and simultaneously therewith, the orderly phasing-in of Sapo so that the March 17 2017 court order is complied with,” Barned added.