Bathabile Dlamini ‘reaches agreement with CPS’ on Sassa payments

According to Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini’s spokesperson Lumka Oliphant, an agreement on Sassa payments has been reached with Cash Paymaster Services (CPS), the company that was illegally awarded a tender years ago to dispense social grant payments.

Following Dlamini and the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) taking no action after the Constitutional Court ordered them in 2014 to find a new service provider by April 1 2017, Sassa admitted to parliament this week that they had no plan in place to ensure grant beneficiaries get their payments next month.

It also emerged that they had ignored legal advice to throw themselves on the mercy of the court after having not acted in good faith towards both the Constitutional Court and parliament.

It became clear that the only company with the capacity to continue the payments was CPS, which then demanded more money to continue doing the job.

If a new deal could not be negotiated, Sassa said it might even have to resort to cash trucks to ensure recipients get their money.

Oliphant said in a statement on Friday evening that the minister and the company had “reached an agreement after they were locked up in intense negotiations for three days”.

She said the minister would announce the nature of this agreement soon and “details of the announcement will be communicated in due course”.