Government's Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) on Comprehensive Social Security wants to ensure a co-operation agreement on the issue of social grant payments is signed as soon as possible, although details of the proposed arrangement have not been revealed.
Speaking before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and the Portfolio Committee on Social Development in Parliament this morning, minister Jeff Radebe said the committee will ensure all co-operation agreements between the SA Social Security Agency (SASSA) and South African Post Office (SAPO) are signed by Friday, 17 November.
This development comes after SASSA and SAPO failed to find a working solution on the issue of social grant payments.
Radebe, who was brought on as chairperson a few days ago, assured members of Parliament that the IMC is working around the clock to ensure the order of the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) on the future payments of social grants is delivered.
The IMC, which was established to ensure the ConCourt order concerning the payment of 17 million social grants is well executed, was initially chaired by president Jacob Zuma.
Yesterday, the IMC met against the backdrop of ongoing engagement between SASSA and SAPO.
According to Radebe, the committee considered the reports from SASSA, SAPO, as well as National Treasury on its engagement with the two entities on the social grants payments issue.
"We want to ensure by next Friday all co-operation agreements are signed to ensure we move with speed." The minister added that details of the distribution of payments will only be revealed once the agreement has been signed, but noted government entities will be the main drivers of social grant payments.
"Government is going to be doing this thing," expressed Radebe, adding it wanted to "make sure the grants will be distributed by an entity other than CPS [Cash Paymaster Services]".
Going hybrid
While social development minister Bathabile Dlamini has been quick to highlight SAPO's shortcomings to issue SASSA grants, Treasury believes a hybrid model for payments can be adopted.
CPS, a Net1 UEPS Technologies subsidiary, has been distributing social grants on behalf of SASSA since it was awarded the tender to carry out these services in 2012.
SASSA's contract with CPS expired in March, but the ConCourt ordered CPS to continue payments until the end of March 2018 to avoid a social grants catastrophe.
Dlamini said last week, at a press briefing, SAPO is "incapacitated" and noted it can only offer one out of the four services required to pay social grants.
SASSA concluded that a procurement process will be the only way to ensure the services that SAPO could not offer are secured. However, the social development entity was instructed to place procurement process plans on ice, pending a Treasury review report.
In a statement issued this morning, the IMC says it considered a Treasury report on the review process on the engagement between SASSA and SAPO.
Treasury confirmed the hybrid model for the payment of grants, says the statement. "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 the evaluation and consolidation of the respective strengths of each entity and possible additional capacity from other parties."
It continues: "The intervention includes partnership between SASSA and SAPO, home affairs, State Security Agency and the establishment of a dedicated team to develop a project plan by next week Friday.
"The project plan will outline the detailed plan for execution, resource requirements, critical milestones and communication strategy. This will also include the commitment to draw in additional capacity from other organs of state as may be required. The mandate of the dedicated team will be to ensure finalisation of the agreement between the parties, the contracting framework, risk assessment and mitigation, monitoring and evaluation. The dedicated team will report weekly to the IMC and will commit resources needed for execution of the project."
The IMC reaffirmed its commitment to implement the ConCourt order through the deployment of all necessary resources to achieve the implementation of new system by the end of March 2018.
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