Picture: Social grant beneficiaries queuing
In 2012, the South African government outsourced the national distribution of social grants to Cash Paymaster Services.
The company came with baggage, including numerous bribery allegations over the previous 10 years. These were denied.
In 2014, the Constitutional Court invalidated the 2012 tender because of a series of irregular acts by South African Social Grants Agency officials, which had the effect of sweeping in Cash Paymaster.
The judges noted: “An unfair process may betoken a deliberately skewed process”.
But the court ultimately allowed Cash Paymaster to keep its invalid contract to ensure the grant payments were not interrupted.
Throughout, officials have acted questionably to repeatedly benefit one party: Cash Paymaster.
AmaBhungane has tracked Sassa’s maladministration and Cash Paymaster’s high political links.
2012
7 February 2012 R10bn grant tender sparks court battle
24 February 2012 ‘Name your price’ bribe offer for R7-billion tender
2 March 2012 Open chequebook bribe unreported
9 March 2012 Zuma’s lawyer and the mega tender
23 March 2012 Tokyo Sexwale’s prints all over R10-billion tender
13 April 2012 Grant-tender beneficiary flouts the law
31 August 2012 Hulley and the R10b tender fiasco
28 September 2012 Social grant contractor’s sideline plan
14 December 2012 Social grants tender: Zuma lawyer’s role queried
2013
22 March 2013 Tape implicates Zuma lawyer in ‘farcical’ tender
31 May 2013 FSB clamps down on Net1’s insurance to poor
2014
28 February 2014 Another red flag raised in Sassa tender
25 April 2014 News analysis: Ruling on grants tender damns Sassa
1 May 2014 Grants ‘monopoly’ under fire
2016
30 September 2016 How Sassa paid R316-million to a contractor based on a ‘lie’
15 December 2016 Serge Belamant, SASSA, and the ‘useful blacks’
2017
3 February 2017 EXCLUSIVE: Officials defied Dlamini on social grants
18 February 2017 Grants: Belamant holds a gun to SA’s head as Dlamini dawdles
25 February 2017 Bathabile Dlamini’s Game of Chicken
16 March 2017 Serge Belamant, Sassa and the ‘war chest’ of poor people
17 March 2017 Social grants payment crisis – everything you need to know but were afraid to ask
4 April 2017 How Net 1 flouts the financial rules
13 April 2017 The minister, the middleman, the mansion and the new corporate kid