Social grants crisis: A very bad day in court

Frustration, bold promises and compromise characterised the proceedings in the Constitutional Court yesterday as a panel of top judges tried to get to the bottom of how the social grants mess happened - and how to fix it.

An increasingly irritated Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng battled to control his annoyance, at one stage telling the advocate for the SA Social Security Agency Andrew Breitenbach, SC: "I'm getting more and more frustrated the more I listen to you."

Although the court gave no indication on when it would rule on how social grants payments would be made on April 1, Serge Belamant, the boss of the company with which Sassa has an invalid payments contract, Cash Paymaster Systems, said he was hoping for a decision today so that CPS would be able to pay the grants on time.

The court was hearing an application by NGO the Black Sash that it oversee the social grants payments.

The Department of Social Development failed to find a service provider to take over from CPS, or create an in-house system, on the expiry of the CPS contract at the end of this month.

The court previously ruled that the existing contract with CPS was invalid because of tendering irregularities.

Mogoeng said Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini's vague explanations for the crisis and her lack of leadership in respect of Sassa left them with the inevitable conclusion that she was "incompetent".

He, the Black Sash and NGO Freedom Under Law called for her to explain why she should not pay the litigation costs out of her own pocket.

Mogoeng said Dlamini should have known what was happening at Sassa.

He told advocate Breitenbach: "We need some help from you on why the minister cannot be blamed. How do you get to the point at which Sassa looks absolutely incompetent? How are you unable to even explain how you got here?"

At one stage Breitenbach told the court it must "not jump" to adverse conclusions about the minister.

His comments did not go down well with Mogoeng, who warned him to mind his language.

"Decorum of the court does not permit counsel to warn us. We are not warned by officers of the court."

CPS advocate Alfred Cockrell SC was also not spared. CPS came to the court asking for an inflation-based fee increase if it administered grant payouts for a further 18 months. It said it would agree to the court supervising the contract and would make its financial statements known to the court.

This is an about-turn on correspondence in December in which CPS told Sassa that it would charge between R22 and R25 for each beneficiary. Now it is offering to provide the service for R16.44 plus inflation.

The CPS request for an 18-month contract did not please Mogoeng, who wanted to know why 12 months would not suffice, given that that is how long Sassa says it needs to secure a new supplier.

Also in court was the SA Post Office, which insisted that it could provide payments to all beneficiaries within a month of being given the go-ahead. Mogoeng seemed to be sceptical regarding the Post Office's assertion.