Johannesburg - If a solution to the current social grant saga is not found soon, the South African Social Development Agency may have to deliver money in trucks to grant recipients.
This was revealed in Parliament on Wednesday when Sassa and the Social Development Department appeared before their oversight portfolio committee, along with the South African Reserve Bank.
After playing their cards close to their chests, department officials relented to desperate questions from MPs after worrying what would happen if the negotiations with Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) failed.
This happened as the department on Wednesday abruptly withdrew the court papers it had filed with the Constitutional Court on Tuesday, while starting negotiations to extend the contract for pension grant payments with CPS.
Responding to questions, department director-general Zane Dangor said extending the contract with CPS was the most practical option, hence they had engaged in negotiations to secure a contract.
Dangor said one of their strategies was to pay out grants through the banks, as 90% of beneficiaries had bank accounts.
He said that for those with both banks accounts and Sassa cards, the plan was to use Postbank outlets or post offices to pay them.
“That will mean having to move them from biometrics to PIN. Forty percent use biometrics,” he said.
Dangor also said there was another option they could utilise if all else failed.
“We will do what we have done in exceptional cases in the past. It is risky, but it has been done before,” he said.
“It is to take cash directly on trucks and pay people. That option will be deployed if all else fails. We don’t foresee that happening, though,” Dangor said.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini was again absent, for the second time in a row.
She was reportedly attending a cabinet meeting, and a Sassa delegation led by Thabo Mzobe, who is the chief executive of the National Development Agency, was said to be in negotiations with CPS.
Also absent from the meeting was Sassa chief executive Thokozani Magwaza, who Dangor said had been “booked off ill” after Dlamini appointed Mzobe to fill his position for seven days.
Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa said the government would ensure that all 17 million grant recipients would be paid on April 1.
Ramaphosa, who was answering questions from MPs in Parliament on Wednesday, said the matter was being addressed.
“One of the really good things about our democracy is that it allows us to raise matters of national interest. The Sassa matter is being addressed,” he said.
Sassa spokesperson Kgomoco Diseko told The Star that they believed CPS was the correct option to distribute social grants because “paying out social grants requires special expertise in banking, cash payment, and information and communications technology”, adding that CPS had achieved all these without fail.
Diseko added that Sassa intended “using CPS in the short term, and readvertising this tender this year”.
He said they would be presenting this argument to the court when Sassa relodged its application.
“We are confident that the court will consider our submissions favourably and, in case that doesn’t happen, our contingency plans will kick in.
“Social grant beneficiaries can rest assured that their grants will be paid as usual as from April,” he added.
Constitutional law expert Professor Pierre de Vos slammed Sassa for its late application to the Constitutional Court for the extension of the CPS contract.
Speaking to The Star, De Vos asserted that “Sassa misled the Constitutional Court when it claimed it would be ready to handle the grants itself.
“Then it sat on its hands while the clock was ticking. It is difficult not to draw the conclusion that it delayed because it does not want the court to impose limitations on the amount CPS can charge to do what only CPS can do in the short term - because of the tardiness of Sassa.”
De Vos added the Constitutional Court had no choice but to approve the CPS extension as the court had already stated that CPS was fulfilling a government function from which it could not walk away.