{"id":161819,"date":"2017-03-03T14:59:11","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T12:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=161819"},"modified":"2017-03-03T15:05:12","modified_gmt":"2017-03-03T13:05:12","slug":"national-treasury-makes-it-clear-it-is-not-involved-with-the-sassa-grants-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/161819\/national-treasury-makes-it-clear-it-is-not-involved-with-the-sassa-grants-mess\/","title":{"rendered":"National Treasury makes it clear: it is not involved with the Sassa grants mess"},"content":{"rendered":"

National Treasury has issued a statement<\/a><\/strong> following enquiries into its involvement with the current Sassa grants crisis – saying in no uncertain terms that is has not been involved.<\/p>\n

According to Treasury, it has not been a part of any negotiations with CPS for the contract for payments of grants, and it wanted to clarify that, although the department of social services requested that it participate, the financial department declined.<\/p>\n

Such a request cannot be considered favourable for several reasons, it said:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The procurement regulatory framework delegates responsibility to the accounting officer of the social services department;<\/li>\n
  2. Sassa and the department of social services have already publicly announced that they will approach National Treasury at a later stage once a process has been adopted; and<\/li>\n
  3. In light of the above, participation by National Treasury before this stage would constitute a conflict of interest.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    “National Treasury remains committed to assist when required to find solutions within the confines of the Constitution and the procurement regulatory framework to ensure that the deserving beneficiaries of grants do not suffer.”<\/p>\n

    A pre-emptive response<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The statement from National Treasury comes as the consequences of the Sassa grants crisis starts to take root, spurring speculation as to where final blame for the mess will rest.<\/p>\n

    The\u00a0South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) sits with 17 million beneficiaries that need to paid a social grant, and no plan to pay them.<\/p>\n

    The country’s grant system is currently operated by Net1’s\u00a0Cash Paymaster Services (CPS); however, the contract between the department of social services and CPS was ruled as illegal and invalid by the Constitutional Court in 2014.<\/p>\n

    Despite the ruling, the department continued to use CPS until its contract term came to an end – 31 March 2017.<\/p>\n

    To date, no one from the social services department – least of all its head, Bathabile Dlamini\u00a0– have been held to account, despite being flagged in 2014.<\/p>\n

    Analysts speculate that the government’s inaction on the grants issue will force the Constitutional Court into a difficult position, where it will be forced to either grant an extension to an illegal contract – or allow 17 million people to go without grants.<\/p>\n

    The political and economic repercussions for missing the 1 April payment date are far-reaching, and extremely negative for the ANC government – particularly ahead of the 2019 national elections.<\/p>\n

    This has caused\u00a0concern among analysts that, to avoid the axe falling on any government department, a narrative will be pushed against the Constitutional Courts or National Treasury, naming them as the culprits\u00a0– blocking government’s ability to deliver grants to millions.<\/p>\n

    This will then help to push other agendas, such as those seeking the “radical transformation” of these vital institutions.<\/p>\n

    \n

    Read:\u00a0Why the Sassa grants crisis is a massive problem for all South Africans<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    National Treasury has issued a statement following enquiries into its involvement with the current Sassa grants crisis – saying in no uncertain terms that is has not been involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":139895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-161819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161819"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161833,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161819\/revisions\/161833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}