Communications Minister Nomvula Mokonyane says legal action is being taken against Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) employees believed to be trying to sabotage the migration of millions of social grant beneficiaries to the new payment system.
Mokonyane is part of the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) that’s overseeing the implementation of the Constitutional Court’s rulings on social grant payments.
The court has given the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) until the end of September to end its dealings with CPS after finding its contract was invalid and unlawful.
The IMC gave a progress report earlier on Thursday.
Mokonyane says CPS has “resorted to all manner of attempts to frustrate and sabotage the migration processes.”
“We want to send a strong message to all CPS employees not to interfere with government processes of migrating our people from the old card to the new one.”
Mokonyane says legal action has been taken against some people who have interfered with people swapping their old cards for new ones and those involved in interrupting Sassa employees in carrying out their duties.
She also apologised for the glitches in the system which saw some beneficiaries not receiving electronic payments this month.
“We assure beneficiaries that their grants will be paid – in fact, the money is already in their accounts.”
Social Development Minister Susan Shabangu says 1.6 million of 2.5 million beneficiaries who received cash payments through CPS have already switched to the new gold Sassa cards.