Social Development Minister, Susan Shabangu, explained to Parliament why she suspended a process to get a new tender to take over grant payments.
She refused to sign off on Sassa’s Annual Performance Plan, and wrote to the Constitutional Court to tell them about her decision.
Shabangu said that acting Sassa CEO Pearl Bhengu, who was considered close to the previous minister, Bathabile Dlamini, had asked to go back to KZN.
The new Acting CEO would be Abraham Mahlangu.
Although the decision means that CPS will continue to pay cash disbursments for the near future, shabangu said, “there are people trying to sabotage us. We suspended the cash payment tender because there were problems with it. We don’t want to end up in the courts again. We have to pull up our socks.
“Grinrod and CPS and Net1 are all linked. Now Grinrod is charging cash beneficiaries R10. This was not something we agreed upon. I want to be able to tell the Constitutional Court, CPS is gone”.
In 2017, the Constitutional Court said CPS could carry on distributing social grants until September. But Shabangu, who recently took over as minister, has indicated she has reservations over the tender process implemented to replace CPS’s services.
[Source: eNCA]