Black Sash urges ConCourt to protect Sassa beneficiaries

The Constitutional Court File picture: Matthews Baloyi/Independent Media

The Constitutional Court File picture: Matthews Baloyi/Independent Media

Published Mar 15, 2017

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Johannesburg – The Black Sash Trust on Wednesday told the Constitutional Court that its application for the court to resume its supervisory role over the payment of social grants by the Social Security Agency of South Africa (Sassa) and the controversial Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) sought to safeguard the Constitution.

The Constitutional Court was hearing an application for direct access by non-governmental organisation Black Sash seeking the reinstatement of the court's oversight role over how grants reach some 17 million beneficiaries.

This comes after Sassa declared that it would not be able to in-source the function by 1 April as it does not have the capacity, and thus sought to extend the contract with CPS for a further two years.

In the heads of argument, Black Sash advocate Geoff Budlender SC submitted that the NGO did not want the court to sanction the contract entered into by Sassa and CPS but only supervise it and its implementation to prevent the breach of the Constitution.

"This court is entitled to impose contractual conditions with regards to the new contract between Sassa and CPS, in order to ensure compliance with the Constitution. The court should reinstate the supervisory jurisdiction," Budlender said.

"The Court should not sanction a contract it has not seen. But the court must supervise to ensure that Sassa does its job."

Budlender also argued that the court should protect welfare grants recipients from third-party marketing for loans, funeral plans, airtime and electricity, saying CPS subsidiaries derived benefited from these.

"The court should order the protection of personal information of grant beneficiaries," Budlender said.

"CPS has a patent conflict of interest: on one hand it is under duty under the Sassa Act to protect the private information of beneficiaries, while on the other hand, it has an interest of assisting its parent company and its affiliates to obtain private information of beneficiaries for marketing purposes."

Budlender argued that the executive and Parliament had failed in their oversight roles, and thus the court should step in. He also argued that Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini should be personally liable for costs of the application.

Sassa had argued that the contract must instead be supervised by the Auditor-General or the Public Protector. In 2012, the Social Development Department’s South African Social Assistance Agency (Sassa) contracted Net1 subsidiary Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) to pay billions in social grants and pensions on its behalf.

The contract was declared invalid by the Constitutional Court in 2014, the court challenges against CPS were brought by losing bidder AllPay. The court suspended its ruling for the duration of the deal, so as not to compromise welfare recipients.

CPS contract ends on March 31. The court retained supervisory jurisdiction over the matter after the invalidity was suspended. On November 5, 2015 Sassa filed a report stating that it would not award a new contract, but intended to take over the payment function of social grants from April 1, 2017 when the suspension of invalidity would lapse.

On this basis, the court discharged its supervisory jurisdiction.

Black Sash said it became apparent that Sassa was not in a position to take over the grants payment function as it had previously assured the court.

Members of the Democratic Alliance (DA), ANC Women's League (ANCWL), the New Trade Union Federation, and Black Sash demonstrated outside court on Wednesday.

African News Agency

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