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China-Africa Trade Information Service
info.afrindex.com
China-Africa Trade Information Service
In the Social Development Department's latest bid on Sunday to defend itself in the social grants scandal, it highlighted the current system's benefits for clothing and vegetable sellers.
This as the DA released a letter it received from the department confirming that there is still no new contract between the department or Sassa with Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) for the distribution of social grants from April 1.(The Democratic Alliance (DA) is a South African political party and the official opposition to the governing African National Congress (ANC). The present leader is Mmusi Maimane, who succeeded former Mayor of Cape Town and Premier of the Western Cape Helen Zille on 10 May 2015. The party is broadly centrist, though it has been attributed both centre-left and centre-right policies. It is a member of the Liberal International and the Africa Liberal Network. The DA traces its roots to the founding of the anti-apartheid Progressive Party in 1959, with many mergers and name changes between that time and the present. The party adopted its current name on 24 June 2000. Most recently, it has integrated the smaller Independent Democrats and the tiny South African Democratic Convention.
The DA has been governing the Western Cape, one of South Africa's nine provinces, since the 2009 general election, having won a bigger majority at the most recent election in 2014. It is the only party to have increased its share of the vote in every national election held since 1994, winning 22.23% of the vote in the most recent parliamentary election. The party "draws support from all main population groups in South Africa."
In the municipal elections of 2016, the DA made significant gains in some of the country's most important metropolitan areas. As of August 2016, the DA governs Johannesburg (South Africa's largest city),Tshwane (including Pretoria, the administrative capital),Cape Town (South Africa's second-largest city and legislative capital), Nelson Mandela Bay and various other municipalities.)
"With less than three weeks until the invalid contract with CPS is set to expire, this confirmation is a damning indictment on the devastating inability by the Minister of Social Development, Bathabile Dlamini, to ensure that 17 million poor and vulnerable South Africans will receive their grants next month," said DA MP Bridget Masango in a statement.
The letter was in response to an application by the DA in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act.
The future of more than 17 million people hangs in the balance as the Department of Social Development continues to try and find a solution to the grants payment saga by the March 31 deadline.
Some inforations about Cash Paymaster Services (CPS)
CPS business unit deploys our U.E.P.S. - Social Grant Distribution technology to distribute social welfare grants on a monthly basis to over nine million beneficiaries in South Africa. These social welfare grants are distributed on behalf of SASSA. During our 2012, 2011 and 2010 fiscal years, CPS derived 41%, 47%, and 66% of revenues respectively, from CPS' social welfare grant distribution business.
CPS provides a secure and affordable transacting channel between social welfare grant beneficiaries, SASSA and formal businesses. CPS enrolls social welfare grant beneficiaries by issuing them a U.E.P.S./EMV smart card that digitally stores their biometric fingerprint templates on the smart card, enabling them to access their social welfare grants securely at any time or place.
The smart card is issued to the beneficiary on site and utilizes optical fingerprint sensor technology to identify and verify a beneficiary. The beneficiary simply inserts a smart card into the POS device and is prompted to present his fingerprint. If the fingerprint matches the one stored on the smart card, the smart card is loaded with the value created for that particular smart card. Additionally, during enrolment we capture the beneficiary's voice print to perform biometric verification when using channels such as ATMs and traditional POS terminals that normally do not have fingerprint readers.
The smart card provides the holder with access to all of the U.E.P.S. functionality, which includes the ability to have the smart card funded with pension or welfare payments, make retail purchases, enjoy the convenience of pre-paid facilities and qualify for a range of affordable financial services, including insurance and short-term loans as well as standard EMV transactional capabilities to operate wherever MasterCard is accepted. The smart card also offers the card holder the ability to make debit order payments to a variety of third parties, including utility companies, schools and retail merchants, with which the holder maintains an account. The card holder can also use the same smart card as a savings account.
U.E.P.S. - Social Grant Distribution technology provides numerous benefits to government agencies and beneficiaries. The system offers government a reliable service at a reasonable price.
For beneficiaries, the smart card offers convenience, security, affordability, flexibility and accessibility. They can avoid long waiting lines at payment locations and do not have to get to payment locations on scheduled payment dates to receive cash. They do not lose money if they lose their smart cards, since a lost smart card is replaceable and the biometric fingerprint or voice identification technology helps prevent fraud. Their personal security risks are reduced since they do not have to safeguard their cash.
Beneficiaries have access to affordable financial services, can save and earn interest on their smart cards and can perform money transfers to friends and relatives living in other provinces. Finally, beneficiaries pay no transaction fees when they use infrastructure to load their smart cards, perform balance inquiries, make purchases or downloads, or effect monthly debit orders. For CPS, the system allows to reduce operating costs by reducing the amount of cash CPS have to transport.
