CPS boss warns there is only one day left to ensure payment of social grants

There is no guarantee the 17 million recipients of social grants will be paid come April 1.

That was the word on Tuesday from Cash Paymaster Services (CPS), the only company apparently in a position to facilitate the grant payments.

Serge Belamant, CEO of Net1 UEPS Technologies, parent company of CPS, said if there is no signed deal in place between the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) and CPS by Wednesday, grants recipients will not be paid on April 1.

Times Live reported this warning was contained in a letter filed by Belamant with the Constitutional Court on Tuesday afternoon. Belamant also warned Sassa on Friday that Wednesday was the latest day to finalise the CPS contract if grants were to paid on April 1.

His letter was filed with the court only minutes after Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini defiantly told Parliament that there was no Sassa crisis.

“In order for us to pay on April 1, we need to have access to the funds that must be paid to the beneficiaries. Secondly, we cannot go ahead and pay over R10 billion without a contract with the state,” Belamant said.

Speaking to Radio 702, Belamant said the company needed at least 12 working days to ensure that it would be all systems go for April 1.

The money needed to flow from Treasury to Sassa and from Sassa to a number of banks, including the Reserve Bank, before making it into the hands of millions of beneficiaries across the country.

“So it is not a simple exercise. It takes 12 days, so that takes us to Thursday, and on Thursday we need to have that process in place and working, because if the process starts falling behind time, then to be quite honest, the fact that we want to pay grants on the 1st of April… we simply won’t be able to do it,” Belamant said.

The second problem was that there was no agreement in place to oversee CPS’s distribution of almost R11 billion.

“I would be very surprised if government is going to transfer funds of R10 billion or R11 billion to us without a contract, which means we need to have some form of engagement, some form of contract that says that we will be responsible for that money and responsible to pay it out.”

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, however, told Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) on Tuesday that there will only be clarity regarding grant payments within five or six days.

Gordhan’s briefing to Scopa made it clear that a ministerial task team has usurped Dlamini’s grip on grant payments and contract negotiations with CPS.

According to Gordhan, the committee on Monday formally requested National Treasury to allow a deviation from standard public finance rules. Procurement officials were considering it, he said, and if they agreed, talks with CPS would start afresh.

The deal thrashed out in secret over three days of talks earlier this month, would then have to be renegotiated from scratch.

“We want to as soon as possible remove the sense of uncertainty and crisis and give assurance to the 17 million beneficiaries of the social grant system that they will receive their social grants on the first of April,” Gordhan said. “I think, within next five, six days, will give us absolute clarity about the payment.”

– Additional reporting by ANA

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