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Will the Constitutional Court extend the “invalid” Cash Paymaster Services contract on Tuesday? And will the new social development minister manage to turn around the department that almost saw millions of grant recipients not receiving their livelihood?
New Social Development Minister Susan Shabangu admitted she had been thrown into the deep end during her first appearance before Parliament’s portfolio committee on Wednesday, but said she was committed to ensuring the work gets done.
President Cyril Ramaphosa swapped Shabangu, who was minister of women in the presidency, with the controversial social development minister Bathabile Dlamini, in his Cabinet reshuffle on Monday.
“My head is still spinning, but we have started to do briefings with the minister [Dlamini],” she said, before committing to ensuring the work gets done.
Shabangu’s performance in her previous portfolio didn’t go down with women’s rights activists, who accused her of failing to drive any agenda of women safety and empowerment, and remaining tight-lipped in the wake of numerous attacks on women, emerging only to publicise the 16 Days of Activism campaign during December.
As minister of women in the presidency, Shabangu was responsible for championing the rights of the women of South Africa, but kept “disappearing from the scenes” as though she had no power, activist and columnist Sixolise Gcilishe wrote in a recent column for City Press.
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Her predecessor at the social development department, Dlamini, was hauled to court by nongovernmental organisation Black Sash. An inquiry was set up to probe her role in the social grants crisis.
Her phenomenal bungling of the social grant distribution system endangered the livelihoods of millions of vulnerable citizens.
The inquiry, headed by former Gauteng Judge President Bernard Ngoepe, was set up by the Constitutional Court to establish whether Dlamini should be held personally responsible for the debacle.
At the inquiry, Dlamini was evasive, and said she couldn’t remember things, and was generally seen to have treated the process with contempt.
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Meanwhile, acting Social Security Agency chief executive Pearl Bhengu revealed that the Constitutional Court will next Tuesday rule on the agency’s request to extend the Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) contract by six months.
Bhengu and Shabangu appeared in Parliament on Wednesday to update MPs on the agency and the department’s state of readiness to migrate the nation’s social grants scheme from CPS by April 1.
The Social Security Agency had 31 days in which to fully migrate core components of the grants scheme from CPS, as ordered by the Constitutional Court, to the South African Post Office. Bhengu told Parliament that there had been very important developments since last week, after Sassa requested an extension of the CPS contract earlier this month.
The first was the court decision.
“The date has been set for March 6, of which the court will be sitting for that. We are waiting to hear if the court will grant us that six-month phase-in, phase-out of CPS. The court will say yes or no.”
But, Bhengu said, there was a contingency plan in place.
All payments starting from April would come from Sassa’s corporate account, not CPS’s. This included payments to the 5.7 million people who had Grindrod Bank cards.
“On April 1, everyone will be paid, whether CPS is here or not. The only problem may be at the [cash] pay points.”
Sassa’s key concern was for the 29% of grant beneficiaries, most of whom lived in rural areas and depended on cash deliveries of their social grants, a service that is currently provided by CPS.
In case the court says no to the six-month extension, a plan had been made to ensure that beneficiaries who use cash pay points, roughly 2.9 million people according to the inter-ministerial committee, would get their money.
“On pay days, we will calculate how many people are there, and take them to a place where they can get their money at the nearest ATM, merchant or store.”
MPs across the political spectrum registered their unease at CPS overstaying its welcome.
“Whenever CPS gets mentioned, I get so sceptical. The attitude we saw last year, I get very uncomfortable,” said ANC MP Sibongile Tsoleli.
“If we have to be with them for six more months [so be it], but after [that] we must bury them.”
The chief operating officer of the South African Post Office, Lindiwe Kwele, told Parliament two weeks ago that, whatever the court’s decision, the Post Office would be in charge of the scheme come April 1.
The “phase-in, phase-out” period was merely to ensure a smooth transition, she said.
The second important development was that the Constitutional Court ruled on Friday that CPS may participate in future tender processes, as allowed for by the law.
CPS had argued it was not consistent to bar the company from bidding for all future tenders as a result of their current contract being declared invalid.
The March 2017 judgment “did not render CPS ineligible to participate in the tender process”, the court’s notice read.
– additional reporting by News24
