The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) will this year readvertise a tender to pay 17 million grant beneficiaries.
Following the disqualification of the only three bidders to distribute money to beneficiaries, agency spokesperson Kgomoco Diseko yesterday said Sassa would re-advertise for a tender to take over from Cash Paymaster Services (CPS).
Three years ago, the Constitutional Court declared the contract for the payment of social grants between Sassa and CPS invalid after Sassa failed to ensure that the empowerment credentials claimed by CPS had been objectively confirmed.
The contact comes to an end at the end of March.
The declaration was suspended, however, pending the decision on whether to award a new tender.
CPS distributes social welfare grants to more than 9 million beneficiaries countrywide.
Diseko said that after the CPS contract was declared invalid, Sassa was ordered to re-advertise the tender.
This was done in 2015, and only three bidders responded.
They were all disqualified, however, at the administrative compliance stage of the evaluation process, Diseko said.
The Department of Social Development then established a task team to consider taking over the payment of social grants in-house, and specialist work streams were appointed to look into services including banking, cash and card distribution.
“The reality is that for the function to be insourced, Sassa had to provide these services, and this involves recruiting the appropriate people and obtaining the relevant industry accreditation and licences, among others, and this takes more time than had been allocated,” said Diseko.
Sassa provincial spokesperson Shivani Wahab said beneficiaries would be paid on time, despite rumours of non-payment.