Let Gordhan lead Sassa’s grant payment negotiations, says DA
Sassa’s withdrawal of its 11th-hour Constitutional Court application raises many questions, such as whether minister Bathabile Dlamini is worried about the fallout for her, the party says
The DA has called on President Jacob Zuma to hand negotiations of the grant payment process to Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, after the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) withdrew its 11th-hour application to the Constitutional Court. Sassa had lodged an urgent application with the court on Tuesday, asking it to extend a social grants distribution contract that the court invalidated in 2014. However, on Wednesday it said it was withdrawing the application because some "inputs were not included". Spokesman Kgomotso Diseko said it would be relodged but could not say when. Sassa officials on Tuesday admitted in Parliament that the agency had no plan to distribute more than 17-million social grants to over 11-million beneficiaries other than to extend Net 1 subsidiary CPS’s contract. In court papers, the agency said it did not have the capacity to distribute the social grants and said grant payments would be in jeopardy come April 1 if the court turned down its urgent applic...
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