CPS allegedly uses grant recipients’ information for profit – report

Cash Paymaster Services (CPS), the company that dispenses social grants to 11 million poor and vulnerable citizens on behalf of the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa), has been reportedly being used by its parent company as a secret backdoor to get grant beneficiaries’ data.

According to report by the amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism and eNCA, US-listed firm Net 1 has been using its subsidiary CPS to exploit the information to make billions selling loans, insurance and other financial products to beneficiaries.

This is despite the contract between Sassa and CPS prohibiting the company and its subcontractors from using grant recipients’ information for commercial purposes.

“… Other companies in the Net 1 group are using the Sassa cards and beneficiary data to access the grant beneficiaries’ Grindrod bank account history and their social grant details.

“This gives Net 1 an information edge over its peers when it lends money or sells insurance and other products because it can sign up customers with no paperwork and almost zero risk of bad loans.

“The department of social development, the Black Sash, a human rights advocacy group, and others have long complained that since CPS took over, there has been a huge increase in debits from social grants for loans, electricity, airtime and insurance,” the report stated.

The investigation by amaBhungane and eNCA comes on the back of a Constitutional Court case by the Black Sash Trust for the court to resume its supervisory role over grant payments.

On previously occasions, Net 1’s executive chairperson Serge Belamant, has given assurances under oath that CPS does not share the data of grant beneficiaries with any of its subcontractors.

Andrew Cockerill, for CPS, on Wednesday argued that the company needed a new contract, with better terms if it were to continue to pay 17 million social grants on April 1 when its contract with Sassa expires in about two weeks, despite its current contract with the grants agency being declared illegal by the ConCourt in 2014.

Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng bluntly asked if he meant more money for CPS and Cockerill found himself on a difficult footing when he could not put a figure to the demand.

Meanwhile, lawyers representing Sassa and Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini got a hammering from Mogoeng, who appeared frustrated by the failure of government to secure an in-house payment system to pay grants as promised by officials in November 2015 when the court relinquished its supervisory role over the matter.

Judgment was reserved in the case by the court.

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