A court ruling confirming the validity of a tender given to Net1 UEPS Technologies subsidiary Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) for issuing social grants was welcomed by the social development ministry on Thursday.

“It has been a long journey through which several cabinet ministers and senior government officials were branded corrupt,” minister Bathabile Dlamini said in a statement. “Justice has been served.”

The supreme court of appeal in Bloemfontein this week overruled a previous high court judgment that the tender awarded by the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) to CPS was “illegal and invalid”.

The matter had been brought before court by AllPay, a subsidiary of Absa, that used to distribute the social grants in certain provinces.

However, the supreme court of appeal found that “CPS had a solution that Sassa was entitled to have and AllPay did not”.

CPS would be able to issue the social grants using a biometric system whereby recipients were identified using their fingerprints.

“CPS was awarded the tender purely on the basis of a good payment solution which was to curb abuse, fraud and corruption while saving money for government,” said Dlamini.

The department is currently re-registering beneficiaries of grants in preparation of the roll-out of the new system. — Sapa