The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) wants to extend the contract with Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) for the payment of social grants by one year from April 1. This emerged from briefing by agency officials to Parliament’s social development committee on Wednesday. "This option is the only one that will ensure that beneficiaries will be paid come April 1," Sassa executive manager Raphaahle Ramokgopa told MPs. CPS is responsible for the distribution of R140bn in social grants to about 17-million beneficiaries. The option to extend the contract carried "the least risk in terms of service delivery failure", Ramokgopa said, admitting that Sassa had failed in preparing itself for the takeover of social grants as from April 1. The contract with CPS was declared invalid by the Constitutional Court and in order for Sassa to extend it beyond the March 31 expiry date, it will have to ask the Constitutional Court to further prolong the suspension of the invalidity of the contract. ...
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