Social Development cans media briefing on grants plan

The Department of Social Development has postponed a media briefing into the social grant payments to South Africans from April as pressure grows for it to reveal a workable plan.

It was postponed until further notice and comes after the Social Development minister Bathabile Dlamini announced during a social cluster media briefing on Tuesday that the briefing was due to be held on Wednesday.

The department is reassuring social grant beneficiaries that their grants will be paid as usual from April 1 this year after their contract with Cash Paymaster Services CPS expires at the end of March.

• Sassa withdraws Concourt contract extension application – another on the wayThe South Africa Social Security Agency has withdrawn its Constitutional Court application asking for an extension of a social grants distribution contract it invalidated in 2014. 

The cancellation of the press conferences also followed the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) withdrawing an application to the Constitutional Court on Wednesday in which it intended asking the cout to extend a social grants distribution contract with CPS which it declared invalid in 2014.

Sassa had lodged an urgent application on Tuesday.

• Shambolic Sassa lambasted, minister a no-showWith a sick, or possibly suspended CEO, no back-up plan and exactly one month in which to finalise the payment of nearly 18 million social grants, the SA Social Security Agency presented a shambolic picture to parliament yesterday, with Minister of Social Development Bathabile Dlamini dodging any backlash by simply not attending. 

In its now-withdrawn papers‚ Sassa admitted it did not have the capacity to distribute the social grants and said grant payments would be in jeopardy come April 1 if the court turned down its application. The agency also conceded that its efforts to petition the Treasury for a condonation had fallen flat.

Sassa has also ruled out all other options presented to it as alternatives to distribute the social grants‚ including using ithe country’s major banks‚ and insists that only a CPS contract extension will suffice.

• Sassa grants debacle: Black Sash takes fight to ConCourtNGO Black Sash has asked the Constitutional Court to ensure Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) is used to pay social grants from April 1 after its contract expires‚ but with strict conditions attached to any new deal. 

On Tuesday  Sassa representatives admitted before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts in Parliament that they had no plan to distribute almost 18-million social grants to over 11-million beneficiaries other than to extend CPS’s contract.