Social development director general Zane Dangor says cash trucks could be used to disburse social grants if the distribution contract with Cash Paymaster Services falls through.
Cash trucks will be used as a backup option to deliver money to rural areas to ensure people get their grants, social development director general Zane Dangor has said.
There was also a fall-back option if negotiations with Cash Paymaster Services, the service provider currently responsible for paying social grants, fell through, Dangor told the portfolio committee on communications on Thursday.
He said 90% of South African Social Security Agency(Sassa) grant beneficiaries had accounts with Grindrod Bank. They would use the bank to pay those recipients.
A total of 40% of beneficiaries had their grants paid out in cash. They would have to change from biometric security measures to using personal identification numbers at cash pay points and Postbank outlets.
A second option for rural areas would be to transport the cash in trucks. Dangor admitted this was risky, but that it had been done before. This would be the last option, if all else failed.
The most practical option was still to go with CPS, and negotiations would end on Friday, he added.
Acting committee chairperson Hope Malgas asked Dangor to update the committee daily. If Sassa failed, the Constitutional Court would also hold Parliament to account, she said.
Cabinet’s Sassa meeting
Cabinet would discuss the pending Sassa social grants crisis with all affected parties sometime next week, Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe said on Thursday.
“Cabinet decided we will have full time next week to get a comprehensive report from all teams, not just social development, but also national treasury and all affected parties,” he told journalists at a briefing following a Cabinet meeting.
“All of us are as concerned as everybody else, as the deputy president highlighted yesterday in Parliament. As a government, we are deeply and totally committed that come April 1, 17-million people must be given their social grants,” he said.
Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini had been summoned to appear before Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts on Tuesday. — News24