Cape Town - The provisional liquidators of Cash Paymaster Services (CPS), the company formerly contracted by the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) to pay grants, have lost their bid to change an April 2021 order by the Constitutional Court.
The court had ordered that the profits made over the duration of the social grants contract, between April 1, 2012, and September 30, 2018, should be audited and verified afresh.
This follows a repeat direction by the Constitutional Court last week that the provisional liquidators of CPS must hand over documents to auditors to establish what profits it made from the unlawful social grants contract.
The Constitutional Court dismissed the application for joinder and variation of the April 2021 order with no order as to costs.
The April 2021 order was for the implementation of earlier judgments of the court, which required proof of the profits earned by CPS from the payment of social grants.
In 2016 the Constitutional Court declared the initial five-year contract between Sassa and CPS invalid and irregular, and ordered CPS to repay Sassa with interest but suspended the declaration of invalidity on certain terms.
These terms included that CPS would have to file an audited statement of the expenses incurred and the income received and the net profit earned under the contract within 30 days of the completion of the 12-month period of the contract.
The suspension of invalidity was twice extended on the same terms as the initial contract, by the orders dated March 2017 and March 2018, in order to ensure that social grants would continue to be paid.
CPS was placed in final liquidation in October 2020 at Sassa’s insistence. This arose from an unsatisfied judgment against CPS for R316 million.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za