Pretoria - The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) has commended the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) management for ensuring that the most vulnerable in the country receive their social grants.
“Scopa notes and appreciates the fact that social grants are being paid as of 01 April 2017 without any reported glitches so far, as should be the case in line with the Constitutional Court ruling.
“Scopa is happy that Parliament played an active and critical role in ensuring that, despite the many challenges, the catastrophe of non-payment has been avoided. Scopa would like to apologise to grant recipients who have been needlessly subjected to anxiety and uncertainty,” Scopa said in a statement on Monday.
The committee said it will be closely monitoring the implementation of the extended contract with Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) and the timeous conclusion of a new one to avoid a repeat of the drama that occurred last month.
Last month, the Constitutional Court extended SASSA’s contract with CPS for a year, in order to fulfil the constitutional obligation of paying social grants to beneficiaries.
CPS is responsible for the distribution of social grants to 17 million beneficiaries. Its contract, which was declared invalid by the Constitutional Court in 2014, would have come to an end on 31 March 2017. The court, however, suspended the invalidity so grants could continue to be paid while SASSA made another plan.
On 01 April 2017, SASSA paid over R3.3 billion worth of social grants without incident and over six million transactions by social grant beneficiaries were confirmed by the agency early in the morning.
Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini and her Deputy Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu are today visiting SASSA pay points in Mpumalanga and Gauteng, respectively, to monitor and ensure a smooth process of social grant payments. - SAnews.gov.za
