needed at least twelve days to process the payments<\/a><\/strong>, which have to go through many stops at Sassa and South African banks before reaching beneficiaries.<\/p>\nBelamant and CPS are holding a proverbial gun to the South African grants system, saying that time is running out, and that a deal needs to be signed or else it will be ‘impossible’ for the company to pay out social grants on time.<\/p>\n
The statement has been described as an unacceptable negotiation tactic, with claims from the\u00a0Centre for Applied Legal Services that CPS is fully aware of the position it has government in, and is abusing it.<\/p>\n
The ongoing grants crisis has reached a stalemate between CPS, the department of social development and National Treasury, with all eyes now on the Constitutional Court.<\/p>\n
Social development minister Bathabile Dlamini wants to move ahead in signing a new contract with CPS, with tight restrictions under the watchful eye of the auditor general and the Public Protector, but needs approval from National Treasury.<\/p>\n
Treasury, however, does not want to sign off on any illegal deals – and the lack of tender procedures would make any new deal with CPS as unconstitutional, illegal and invalid as the previous contract which was shot down by the Constitutional Court.<\/p>\n
Something that has been a major concern for MPs looking at any potential deal, is that CPS wants to increase the cost per grant paid from around R16 per grant to a reported R25 per grant.<\/p>\n
They are also concerned with the company using beneficiaries’ personal details to sell products to vulnerable people from\u00a0other Net1 subsidiaries, such as micro loans.<\/p>\n
Concerns have also been raised at the shareholding and make-up of the CPS and Net1 businesses, where it is white and foreign-owned, and does not meet government’s transformation targets.<\/p>\n
Alternatives<\/strong><\/p>\nFollowing the Constitutional Court ruling the CPS contract was invalid in 2014, Sassa said it would work to take the grants payment system in-house.<\/p>\n
In March 2017, it informed the court that it could not, admitting that it had known since October 2016 that it would be unable to meet the requirements.<\/p>\n
The South African Post Office has stepped up and said it would be able to take over the payment of grants, but would need 6 months to set up the systems. It said that CPS no longer needed to be involved.<\/p>\n
However, CPS said that the Post Office’s quote was R2 billion more than the same service it could provide.<\/p>\n
Sassa does not want the Constitutional Court to have oversight over negotiations with CPS on a new contract, and refuses to\u00a0divulge the cost or length of said contract until after it is signed.<\/p>\n
Dlamini has said there is no crisis, and has assured that beneficiaries will be paid come 1 April.<\/p>\n
\nRead:\u00a0We can save the grants payment crisis, Post Office says<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cash Paymaster Services CEO Serge Belamant says that time is running out to sign a deal that will allow the company to pay out millions of grants by 1 April 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":134591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[11839,26],"class_list":["post-164511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-cps","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164511","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=164511"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164545,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164511\/revisions\/164545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}