After several attempts at getting the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) and the Department of Social Development to present a detailed plan for the takeover from Cash Pay Master Services (CPS) of the distribution of around 17-million social grants to the most vulnerable South Africans on April 1 next year, Minister of Social Development Bathabile Dlamini, new Social Development DG Zane Dangor as well as other high-ranking Sassa officials finally arrived to brief Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Social Development on Wednesday.

Things got off to a slow start when committee members complained that Sassa had not forwarded key documents prior to the meeting, a vital prerequisite for members being able to ask probing questions about one of the most pressing national matters – how exactly Sassa is going to go about paying social grants to around 17-million of the country’s most vulnerable citizens from April 1.

Three hours later, ANC as well as DA members left the briefing fuming, exclaiming that the missed deadlines, countless delays, vague outlines and the contemplation of “options” of what still needed to be accomplished at this late stage in the process was “unacceptable”.

Earlier Sassa CEO, Thokozani Magwaza, had reassured MPs that Sassa would be able to fulfil its obligations after March 31, 2017 when the CPS tender [which the ConCourt ruled was irregularly awarded] expired. However, a presentation by Sassa’s project leader, Zodwa Mfulani, replete with spelling mistakes and eye-watering officialese including a heading titled “Strategic Disintermediation”, did not convince members.

ANC committee member Solomon Mabilo asked how Sassa hoped to accomplish the massive task when it, in effect, had only one month to do so, and had failed to implement five of seven deliverables set out by the court.

“We are about to go into December which is a holiday season. Then we go into January which is also holiday season. Then all you have left is February before the tender expires. And then you come here and say this is still a work in progress,” he thundered.

The DA’s Lindy Wilson said she was alarmed that the committee had been shown nothing concrete:

“We have seen nothing, no timelines. You have missed five deadlines and you have not gone back to the Constitutional Court to explain why. This is not a game, this is not Mickey Mouse. The question is, is Sassa ready to take over the process on its own?”

Minister of Social Development, Bathabile Dlamini, told committee members that the project was “a process” and that the department did not want to be “pushed into saying who is going to pay our people”.

“We are going to ensure that our people get their money on the 1^st of April. We don’t want to be pushed about who is going to pay the money because it looks like there are other interests beside the interest of the human rights of the grant recipient to get a grant [huh?]. We have agreed that we should go back to court and give a report on where we are and the challenges that we are facing in terms of the process but also look into government regulations, what government regulations say about a pressing emergency and issues that affect directly communities and issues that have to do with finances and human beings. So there we have to develop our contingency plans. And we don’t want to reveal our contingency plans as it might risk the department and the work we are doing,” said the minister, muddying the already opaque waters.

To which ANC committee member, Sibongile Tsoledi, replied, “With all due respect, who is going to pay is very critical to the grant recipients. We are not satisfied. We have to answer to our constituents. Are they [Sassa] ready to take over the funding on April 1? Are they anticipating extending the contract to the current suppliers Cash Paymaster Services? If they do, what are the implications?”

The DA’s Lindy Wilson reminded the minister that the committee was a constitutional structure and that she [Dlamini] was required to be accountable.

“To say when we ask is putting the department at risk is absurd, unless the plans are secret. We are public representatives. We have said the department should present to us a progress report. This is far from what we requested,” she said.

DA MP Bridget Masango said that the minister’s reply and the presentation by Sassa officials confirmed what the DA had suspected all along ,“They want to create an emergency in order to extend their contract with CPS.”

“The DA is now quite certain that Net1/CPS will continue with payments, despite the fact that their tender was deemed irregular by the Constitutional Court, because it is the only option available to Sassa at present. We await the minister’s announcement that, based on the fact that grants are a national issue and that recipients are reliant on them for survival, that an emergency situation has been declared and CPS have been asked to continue their services,” Masango said after the committee meeting had been adjourned.

It was the ANC’s Solomon Mabilo who had earlier reminded officials and the minister that the committee played an oversight role and needed to be fair and frank.

“In this regard I have heard the project leader presenting reasons why some of the time lines were not met. She is saying that they were over-ambitious. Well, that kind of explanation is unacceptable. It is not plausible, it can’t stand. I am sorry, it can never be acceptable. I regard it as an insult to us. Because if you are faced with such a mammoth task you cannot be wishy-washy. You must be strategic. You must plan thoroughly. This is project management. So, for someone to say the plan was over-ambitious is an insult. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. It is as simple as that.”

Earlier Minister Dlamini, perhaps in an attempt to divert attention from the pressing matters at hand, told MPs that the department wanted some control over how grant recipients actually spent their money.

“We don’t, for example, want them to spend it on alcohol or to be able to collect it at a bottle store,” said the minister.

The DA’s Lindy Wilson replied that recipients had not only had a constitutional right to grants but also how they chose to spend this.

“Are you going to say next that they can’t spend grant money on sugary drinks?” she asked.

Earlier Sassa project leader Mfulani had told the committee that a plan had been drawn up for two payment models that Sassa would adopt.

The first was the creation of a special Sassa grant dispensation account with participants in a national payments system offering specialised but limited Sassa accounts that needed to comply with the agency’s requirements. In other words, multiple service providers would offer Sassa accounts and those beneficiaries with existing bank accounts would be given their own choice of bank account.

Mfulani also unpacked the concept of “strategic disintermediation” which essentially amounted to the splitting up of a function currently delivered by one service provider, CPS, into six multiple service providers.

There were howls of protest from committee members who said that Sassa, already buckling from around R1-billion in irregular, wasteful and fruitless expenditure, would now open itself up to even more potential corruption.

“We are fixing the the car as it goes,” said Raphaahle Ramokgopa, Sassa’s Executive Manager for Strategy and Business Development.

The DA’s Masango and Wilson have been at the forefront of highlighting the fact that Sassa has not put in the necessary work or planning to enable it to take over the function of disbursing grants to the country’s poor and that this could result in a social catastrophe come 2017.

“Millions have already been spent on an Advisory Committee appointed by the minister to advise on the takeover plan, as well as on a number of ‘workstreams’ based inside Sassa, who have, to date, failed to deliver,” said Masango.

She added that “playing games with the lives of 17-million poor and vulnerable South Africans is not acceptable” and that the party would request the chair of the Portfolio Committee, Rosemary Capa, to summon Minister Dlamini and Sassa to report back to the committee as soon as the term opens in 2017 “with a proper, concise presentation, complete with deliverables and time frames on this critical takeover”. DM

Photo: Thousands of South Africans wait in line outside Guguletu Social Services office to register for a Social Relief of Distress Grant, Guguletu, Cape Town, South Africa 28 January 2009. EPA/NIC BOTHMA