MPs enraged by Sassa’s lack of preparation to take over grant payments
The DA says it suspects Sassa has ‘forced an emergency’ to ensure Net1 subsidiary CPS’s contract is extended
MPs were enraged on Wednesday by the South African Social Security Agency’s (Sassa’s) lack of preparation by the to take over social grant payments on April 1. Members of Parliament’s social development committee were informed by Sassa that it wanted a one-year extension of Net1 subsidiary Cash Paymaster Systems’ (CPS’s) contract to pay social grants to about 17-million beneficiaries. This, Sassa officials said, was the only way to ensure that grants were paid without disruption. Sassa plans to apply to the Constitutional Court to extend the suspension of invalidity of the CPS contract — declared invalid and unlawful in 2013 — by one year to give it time to set up an alternative payment system. Inkatha Freedom Party MP Liesl van der Merwe said there was no guarantee that the court would give the go-ahead to extend the contract. She asked what Sassa had done over the past four years to prepare to take over the grants payments from CPS. None of the timelines laid down by the court in ...
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