Social grants IMC breaks impasse between Sassa‚ Post Office

The deadlock between the South African State Security Agency (Sassa) and the Post Office has been broken with the two entities now agreeing to work together to pay social grants.

This was announced by minister in the presidency Jeff Radebe‚ who is the new chairman of the inter-ministerial committee (IMC) on social grants after President Jacob Zuma relinquished the position last week.

The IMC appeared before a joint meeting on the social development portfolio committee and the standing committee on public accounts on Wednesday morning.

The two committees called for the IMC last week to intervene in resolving the impasse between Sassa and the Post Office (Sapo)‚ which saw the two entities‚ along with social development minister Bathabile Dlamini‚ clashing before MPs over who should take over the payment of grants from Cash Paymaster Services.

“The IMC has thus taken a decision to fast-track the introduction of an integrated payment system which will be provided by government through a partnership between Sassa and Sapo. The approach will focus on the consolidation of the respective strengths of each entity and possible additional capacity from other parties‚” said Radebe. He said details of the project plan would be provided once they are finalised by next week Friday.

Radebe assured the two committees of parliament and social grants beneficiaries that "no card will expire on December 31 2017".

Radebe was accompanied by telecommunications minister Siyabonga Cwele‚ Bongani Bongo of State Security‚ and Dlamini‚ who are all part of the IMC.

Themba Godi‚ the chairman of Scopa‚ said he welcomed Radebe's intervention. “All necessary resources and capacities will be in place and there will be weekly reporting [from now on]‚” said Godi.