The ‘real reason’ Bathabile Dlamini forced SA to stick with CPS?

The April edition of Noseweek – an investigative magazine that has been closely following the SA Social Security Agency’s (Sassa’s) crisis regarding Cash Paymaster Services’ (CPS’s) contract – this week released details of yet another alleged layer of intrigue in the story.

In its cover story, it details some of the confusion around why Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini would so brazenly ignore a Constitutional Court order that a new service provider needed to be found by the start of April to pay South Africa’s 11 million grant beneficiaries their 17 million grant payments.

The minister was slammed by the court’s justices this month, who said she had shown “absolute incompetence” in her job. She later apologised to the nation about it.

However, the minister appeared to get what she had been aiming for: an extension of CPS’s contract. This will now continue for a year with the regular supervision of the Constitutional Court, which has in effect taken over the social development department’s job.

According to Noseweek, however, although the minister (and President Jacob Zuma) appeared to have wanted a longer extension, the shorter extension still favours them because the saga was allegedly about more than just the “(by now) routinely anticipated cash bribe or kickback”.

“It had to be something cleverer than that – and something much more significant and sinister.”

Providing numerous details, the publication alleges the real power of CPS’s involvement lies in the fact that the US-owned company has access to the personal details of all its beneficiaries and was willing to trade this with the Zuma faction that is pushing for the election of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who is more likely to ensure Zuma continues to avoid prosecution on long-standing corruption charges.

Dlamini, as the president of the ANC Women’s League, has left no doubt she would want Dlamini-Zuma to take over as ANC president from her ex-husband in December at the party’s elective conference.

“CPS (and its holding company Net1) has the mobile phone numbers, names, ID numbers and place of residence of all social grant recipients on its database.”

Noseweek adds that Net1, with its associate company Blue Label Telecom, can allegedly also provide access to Cell C’s database of “more millions of (mostly black) subscribers with their names, ID numbers, cellphone numbers and addresses”.

“Together, these give cellphone access to an estimated 20 million (overwhelmingly, black and largely illiterate) well-identified voters on their database.”

It speculates that this access will be useful in December during the party’s elective conference when trying to send messages “to a computer-selected ANC branch voter audience”.

“This is exclusive access since it is an audience that is effectively out of the reach of mainstream media and other political parties.”

The investigative magazine claims to have the minutes of a Cell C meeting of directors (Update: see Cell C’s response below) where this was discussed.

However, Sassa itself should also easily be able to access the full list of beneficiaries and their particulars without the help of CPS, something the Noseweek article does not elaborate on.

Having Sassa distribute grant payments itself remains the preferred choice, but the government agency claims not to have the capacity to do so, although it may be able to in future.

Curiously, Noseweek further alleges that United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa has alleged that Bathabile Dlamini and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma are biological sisters, but The Citizen could not find an independent reference for this.

Holomisa did, however, show great concern in parliament earlier this month that Minister Dlamini allegedly flew in a helicopter, accompanied by the beneficiaries of the Cash Paymaster Services contract, to an Umkhonto weSizwe veteran’s funeral in Willowvale, Eastern Cape.

“Who hired this helicopter?” I asked myself, as I was present at the funeral and saw the spectacular landing,” Holomisa said. “We want answers.”

Gen Holomisa says Minister Dlamini flew to a funeral in Willowvale in a private helicopter accompanied by beneficiaries of CPS contract. 🤔🤔

— Scapegoat (@AndiMakinana) March 14, 2017

Update: Since this story was published, The Citizen received an email from Cell C claiming that there was no discussion about Net1 at a Cell C board meeting.”

Media relations manager Candice Jones wrote: “We categorically deny that any discussion regarding Net1 as described in Noseweek’s publication took place at a Cell C Board meeting. As such a discussion never occurred, it could not have been minuted as claimed by Noseweek. We have called on Noseweek to produce these so-called ‘minutes’ but have not had a response yet from them. We therefore request that you urgently remove any reference to Cell C from the article as it is based on false information.”