Social Grants Crisis: DA will demand the release of the new CPS contract

9 March 2017

The DA will write to the Minister of Social Development, Bathabile Dlamini, to demand that the new contract with Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) be made public.

If she will not do so voluntarily, the DA will submit an application, in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA), to force her to.

Reports indicate that the new contract with CPS has already been signed, yet ‘dodging Dlamini’ has taken every opportunity to avoid answering vital questions of clarity on the terms of the new contract.

The ANC and Dlamini have shown time and time again that there will be no accountability for this crisis and that is why the DA is left with no choice but to submit an application in terms of PAIA for the contract, in the interest of openness and transparency.

The current invalid contract between SASSA and CPS will come to an end in just over 3 weeks, on 31 March 2017.

The 17 million South Africans who rely on social grants just to put the bare essentials on the table from day to day, deserve to know if and how their grants will be paid.

Despite the Department of Social Development and SASSA knowing that the current contract was invalid since 2012, they ignored the Constitutional Court, and the DA believes this crisis was manufactured to force a new contract with CPS.

The DA has reason to believe that SASSA’s new contract with CPS will be at an inflated cost that may cost taxpayers billions of rands.

Tomorrow, 10 March 2017, the DA will march, en masse, to the Department of Social Development to show Minister Dlamini, that even if the ANC-government rewards bad behaviour, the DA and South Africans will not.

Issued by Bridget Masango, DA Shadow Minister of Social Development, 9 March 2017