Although the Supreme Court in Pretoria ruled that deductions from the social grants may be done, it is possibly still in contravention of the Consumer Protection Act and the FF Plus will ask the National Consumer Commission (NCC) to investigate the matter, says Adv. Anton Alberts, the FF Plus' parliamentary spokesperson on trade and industry.
Adv. Alberts says he asked the chairperson of the parliamentary portfolio committee on trade and industry in March this year to request the relevant bank where the deductions are made to appear before the committee.
He says it has already been widely reported in the media that NET1 UEPS, the holding company of Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) who is in charge of the payment of the social grants, has other subsidiaries which among others, is in the micro-loans and insurance industry, and that CPS could have been improperly misused to do marketing for these subsidiaries.
"The committee is well aware of the exploitation of poorer South Africans especially through the irregular granting of credit and there is a process to change the National Credit Act to give greater protection to people who are exploited in this way.
"The people who receive allowances are already in a dire financial situation, and everything possible must be done to protect them from further exploitation," says Adv. Alberts.
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