Black Sash in Concourt bid against Sassa

Published Feb 28, 2017

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The Black Sash has filed an urgent application in the Constitutional Court preventing the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) from extending the Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) contract to distribute social grants without the court's supervision.

While the community-based organisation isn't opposing the proposed extension, it’s concern was that the court needs to do oversight of the extension to prevent it from being timeless.

“Sassa must comply with its constitutional obligations to provide social assistance, to do so in a lawful manner, and to protect grant beneficiaries from unlawful depletion of their grants.

“Given the situation Sassa has created, the court should compel Sassa to enter into a contract on terms designed to protect grant beneficiaries,” the Black Sash's Lynette Maart submitted in her founding affidavit.

The top court had previously ordered Sassa to submit reports to it on credible processes followed to appoint a service provider to distribute social grants, but ceased to do it after Sassa reported on November 15, 2015 that it would take over the payment of social grants by March 31, 2017.

“Sassa had failed to do what it told the court it would do. Because it has inexplicably only acted upon this knowledge at the 11th hour, there is no longer any alternative but for it to contract CPS. It has thus created a situation in which there will be no effective oversight over what it does.

“If Sassa had reported timeously and frankly to the court on its inability to do what it had said it would do, the court would not have abandoned the supervisory jurisdiction which it had established,” Maart pointed out.

She said Sassa was now intending to contract CPS in circumstances under which there could be little or no oversight over its conduct.

“Both its conduct during the previous litigation and its more recent conduct make it imperative that there be such oversight. The events indicate that whatever oversight the minister (Bathabile Dlamini) is able and willing to provide cannot be relied upon to be adequate,” Maart said.Negotiations to enter into a new contract with CPS to distribute welfare grants to more than 17 million South Africans would begin today, Sassa told the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) in Parliament yesterday.

Sassa project manager Zodwa Mvulwani told Scopa that the approach to CPS would technically entail a new contract.

Additional reporting by ANA

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