Who is ultimately responsible for holding the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) accountable?
2 February 2017
The Black Sash is gravely concerned at the outcome of SASSA’s briefing to Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Social Development on Wednesday 1 February 2017. More specifically, SASSA’s failure to meet the Constitutional Court Order of 2014 to create and implement the insourcing of social grant payments by 31 March 2017. This affects over 17 million people.
SASSA proposes that the unlawful contract with Cash Paymaster Services to pay social grants be extended for another year ending 31 March 2018. The CPS contract has resulted in countless and unresolved complaints of unauthorised, fraudulent, and unlawful deductions from grant beneficiaries’ SASSA bank accounts. SASSA submitted its timeframes to the ConCourt in November 2015. More than 14 months has passed with no progress and now only weeks before the deadline SASSA will be approaching the ConCourt to extend an invalid contract in the hope of a favourable judgement.
The extension of the CPS contract by a year is premised on several assumptions and decisions to be made by third parties; that the ConCourt will rule in favour of an extension; that National Treasury will grant an extension of the contract in terms of its procurement policies; and that CPS will come on board on agreeable terms. With only 41 working days left before the contract expires, SASSA is not only ambitious but also reckless.
SASSA’s inaction has created this crisis. Yesterday SASSA acknowledged to Parliament that they ‘have failed’. The agency has placed itself in this position by not adhering to the timelines ordered by the ConCourt. SASSA’s inaction has further placed grant beneficiaries’ wellbeing and survival at risk with continued unauthorised, unlawful and fraudulent deductions from their bank accounts with inadequate recourse, resulting in indebtedness. We are dismayed about the trading of grant beneficiaries’ confidential data, which was not addressed in SASSA’s proposals.