Solve grant issue: nationalise CPS

YOUR lead article in The Mercury, March 16, “CPS boss dares government” refers. The suggestion by the chief executive of Cash Paymaster Services that the government “use pigeons to pay grants” is the arrogance of white “oligopoly” at its worst and such arrogance must be dealt with in the harshest terms.

CPS has built an empire on the back of the poor and vulnerable, and one would have expected them to be more accommodating and amenable.

The ANC-led government, to a large degree, had to deal with majority rule at the political level accompanied by continued de facto economic, and especially labour market, apartheid. As a consequence, we find ourselves as a country dealing with an entity such as CPS, which seems to be holding our entire nation to ransom.

Can we, more than 22 years into democracy, allow this sole service provider to continue unchallenged? Government needs to show leadership in dealing with an issue of national interest and perhaps take a grip of the situation and “nationalise” CPS.

This is a solution that will once and for all put the matter and uncertainty to rest. We cannot in good conscience – actually, whatever our conscience is – exist in a world in which the rich forever get richer, and millions of poor in our country languish, assuming that they will not protest their fate.

There is growing support to ending neo-liberal capitalism that is increasingly becoming authoritarian and class-based oppression, by advancing the struggles for a national resolution. Let the nationalisation of CPS be the first step.

BARLOW GOVENDER Durban