BID TO REDIRECT GRANTS
NGO petitions top court to relieve Sassa of payments
THE CONSTITUTIONAL Court has been asked to direct President Cyril Ramaphosa to transfer the payment of social grants to Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene or his planning, monitoring and evaluation counterpart, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma.
Freedom Under Law wants the SA Social Security Agency’s function of paying social grants and providing other social assistance to be moved from the Department of Social Development to the National Treasury or the Presidency’s planning, monitoring and evaluation ministry.
The NGO is among the parties cited by Sassa in its Constitutional Court application to have Cash Paymaster Services’ (CPS) multibillion-rand social grants payment extended for another six months – from next month till September.
“… The president should be directed to consider the transfer of the administration of the Sassa Act and the Social Assistance Act to the finance minister or the minister in the Presidency for planning, monitoring and evaluation,” read Freedom Under Law’s written submissions.
If the NGO succeeds in its Concourt bid, one of the newly appointed ministers – Nene or Dlamini Zuma – would take control of social grant payments from new Social Development Minister Susan Shabangu.
Freedom Under Law’s submission supports the findings of the panel of experts set up by the country’s highest court, following the extension of CPS’s unlawful contract by a further 12 months last year.
The panel of experts, which includes Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu, ANC veteran Mavuso Msimang and former Reserve Bank governor Gill Marcus, among others, is monitoring Sassa’s now doomed takeover of social grants payments from CPS and also submits quarterly reports on its progress to the Concourt.
It also found that former social development minister Bathabile Dlamini had failed to provide the appropriate leadership throughout the grants crisis.
The panel recommended that the president should, “in terms of section 97(a) of the constitution of 1996, by proclamation (transfer) the administration of the Social Security Agency Act… and the Social Assistance Act… to the minister of finance or the minister in the Presidency for planning, monitoring and evaluation”.
Freedom Under Law believes it would be appropriate for the Concourt to urgently direct Ramaphosa to consider exercising his powers.
Its executive officer, Nicole Fritz, yesterday said Ramaphosa’s cabinet reshuffle on Monday, in which he replaced Dlamini as social development minister with Shabangu, had not changed the status quo at Sassa.
”It’s not about the change of ministers, wholesale changes in the department and the agency,” Fritz said.
She told The Star that there was no expertise or skills in the Department of Social Development, but she hoped that with a new minister at the helm, the social grants crisis might be dealt with.
But Fritz conceded that Shabangu faced an enormous challenge to fix the mess.
If the Concourt, which will hear the matter on Tuesday, approves the CPS six-month contract extension, Freedom Under Law wants the court to order the company to repay the R705 million after-tax profit it earned under an unlawful contract, which its auditors have confirmed.
The panel will also recommend that the Concourt instructs the Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Department to probe “the desirability of moving the payment function of social grants to the National Treasury (or other appropriate organ of state), leaving the registration, verification and administration of social grant beneficiaries with Sassa or the Department of Social Development”.
The DA has indicated it supports the panel’s recommendation that the social grants payment function be taken over by the Treasury.
Black Sash national director Lynette Maart said if Sassa’s governance and leadership issues were not fixed, it should be placed under ministries with much more capacity.
Maart said Sassa did not even have the capacity to draw up a proper contract and service-level agreement with CPS, which allowed the company to exploit social grants beneficiaries.
Yesterday, Sassa said it had made significant progress in the self-distributing of grants to millions of recipients.
Sassa spokesperson Paseka Letsatsi said the agency’s key target was to manage and pay social grants “without the use of a third- party contractor”, as was the case currently through CPS, and that it was on course to achieve this.
“It has already made direct transfers into about 2.4 million personal bank accounts for the month of March 2018. This file is processed for payment through the Treasury to Bankserv for payment from Sassa’s own paymaster general account,” he added.
In February, Sassa paid more than R2.6 billion to beneficiaries who receive social grants from commercial bank accounts, Letsatsi said.
The remaining 8.4 million beneficiaries would be paid through the various outlets using ATMs, point of sale devices and in cash at Sassa paypoints.