The Constitutional Court wants answers. And Minister of Social Development Bathabile Dlamini and her team need to provide them by Monday.
Yesterday, Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng sent directions to Dlamini and the South Africa Social Security Agency (Sassa) in preparation for next week’s court appearance regarding the administration of social grants for 17 million recipients.
The department is expected to appear in court on Wednesday regarding who will administer the payment of grants from April 1, when the Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) contract expires. The contract was found to be illegal in 2014.
The department will be in court following an application by civic group Black Sash, which argues that the court should allow Sassa to continue its relationship with CPS. The Black Sash has also asked the Constitutional Court to reinstate its supervisory jurisdiction over Sassa, after it discharged its oversight in November 2015.
In his directions to the department and Dlamini, Justice Mogoeng wants to know who was responsible for determining that the state agency would not be able to administer the grants at the beginning of next month. He also wants to know when Sassa became aware it would not be able to pay out the grants and why the court was not immediately informed.
Justice Mogoeng also wants to know whether Sassa has already entered into a new agreement with CPS. If this had been done, full details should be disclosed and presented to the court.
The court also wants to know whether it is “Sassa’s contention that this agreement is lawful and in compliance with the procurement requirements of the constitution and applicable legislation”.
Dlamini has said a technical report on the new CPS contract would be available tomorrow.
Last week, in court papers, Dlamini and Sassa informed the court that the agency did not have the internal capacity to pay out grants when the CPS contract expires on March 31. The department and the minister said that after exploring other options, it became apparent CPS was the only one with the capacity to pay out grants.
In its papers, Sassa took full responsibility for the grant debacle.
In light of this, Justice Mogoeng asks in his directions whether “Sassa or the minister have any objection to independent monitoring of any agreement Sassa may have entered into with CPS for the payment of grants from April 1”. If they did, they had to explain why they would have objections.