CPS contract has to be extended otherwise grants won’t get paid

Black Sash’s counsel says ‘there has been a serious breach of the Constitution’; CPS wants even more money per beneficiary in any new contract.............

The Constitutional Court is beneficiaries’ last resort if they want to receive their social grants at the end of the month, Black Sash argued on Wednesday.
Geoff Budlender SC, on behalf of the advocacy group, said the "painful truth" was that the executive and Parliament had failed in terms of their oversight roles, which meant the court had to step in, adding that the Constitution provided for this when the other two arms of state had failed in their duties.
Black Sash has approached the court on an urgent basis asking, among other things, that the court’s oversight role be reinstated over the contract between the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) and Cash Paymaster Services (CPS).

In 2014, the court found the contract between CPS and Sassa invalid, but this finding had been suspended so that social grants could be paid until March 31 2017.
Sassa had assured the court that on April 1 2017 it would be able to take over the payment of grants; however, this is no longer the case. The court wanted to know when Sassa realised it could not take over the payment of grants, who made the decision, and why the court was not told.
Sassa has said it knew it would not be able to take over the payment of social grants in April last year, while Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini said she was informed in October.

On Wednesday, Budlender questioned how Dlamini had been kept in the dark for six months. "Ministers who do their jobs have regular meetings with people in their departments," he said, claiming that Dlamini had failed in her constitutional and statutory duty to exercise oversight: "There has been a serious breach of the Constitution."
Budlender said the court’s oversight was needed because Black Sash had no confidence in Dlamini or Sassa that this could not happen again when a new contract with CPS came to an end, and says the contract with CPS should only be extended for six months.

Advocate David Unterhalter for Freedom Under Law (FUL), which was applying to intervene in the matter, argued that six months was too short and proposed a 12-month extension of the contract. However, FUL believed that a "no benefit" clause should be added to the contract claiming that CPS had already benefited from the past five-year contract. The company was getting R16.44 per beneficiary but has now proposed R22 per beneficiary.

On March 10, in a letter to Sassa, acting Sassa CEO Wiseman Magasela said CPS claimed that a new contract would have to be signed by Wednesday otherwise it would not be able to pay grants on April 1.
Unterhalter argued on Wednesday that CPS was required to continue paying grants even after the dissolution of its current contract because it had become an "extension of state" — the company could not just walk away from its obligation. FUL consequently wants the court to consider extending the CPS contract.
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