An urgent application in which the company Epupa Investment Technology tried to stop the Ministry of Finance from implementing a decision to use the state-owned Namibia Post (NamPost) for the cash payment of social grants failed in the Windhoek High Court on Friday.
The application was struck off the court roll, with acting judge Andrew Corbett refusing to have the matter heard as an urgent case.
NamPost announced near the end of August that it would be taking over the monthly cash payment of basic state grants and allowances to beneficiaries of social grants. The grants include old-age, disability and children’s grants.
On 11 September, Epupa Investment Technology filed an urgent application in which it asked the High Court to order the minister of finance, the Central Procurement Board of Namibia (CPBN), the executive director of the Ministry of Finance and NamPost not to implement a procurement award given to NamPost.
Epupa claimed “a secretive procurement process appears to be unfolding” and that a contract to make cash payments of basic state grants and allowances to beneficiaries of social grants has been awarded to NamPost without competition and without following the Public Procurement Act.
The chairperson of the company’s board of directors, Meriam Hoveka, said in an affidavit filed at the court that Epupa Investment Technology was awarded a contract to carry out cash payments of state grants and allowances to beneficiaries in November 2016.
In December 2023, the CPBN invited bids for a tender to provide cash payment services for basic state grants and allowances, but the CPBN decided in September 2024 to cancel that procurement process, Hoveka said.
She added that Epupa heard through the grapevine in early August that its contract to provide cash payment services for social grants and allowances would terminate by the end of November and that the contract had been awarded to NamPost.
Hoveka also said Epupa has been providing the cash payment service since 2016 without complaints and to the satisfaction of the government, and it is entitled to competitively bid and compete for the award of the tender.
The approach adopted by the finance minister, executive director and CPBN places Epupa’s business at risk, and the company’s 118 employees will be without employment if the “unlawful and secretive appointment” of NamPost is allowed to proceed, Hoveka said.
In an answer to Hoveka’s sworn statement, finance minister Ericah Shafudah says using the parastatal NamPost to make monthly cash payments to social grant beneficiaries would save costs.
The cost of cash payments done by Epupa amounted to N$112.6 million a year, compared to a projected cost of N$54.7 million a year under a new payment system, according to figures provided by Shafudah.
She alleges the interdict Epupa wanted the court to issue was aimed at collapsing an important and key public service programme providing support to vulnerable people in Namibian society.
Shafudah says Epupa was aware that its procurement award to provide cash payment services to the government was to end on 30 September, and the finance ministry also informed the company of this in letters in June and July this year. Epupa accepted that its contract was to end at the end of September, she adds.
Shafudah also says Epupa has known since last year that its bid for the tender issued in December 2023 was non-responsive and that the procurement process had been cancelled.
The company knew as well that the Ministry of Finance had been ordered to reform the cash payment of monthly grants and allowances and that the old cash payment system had to be phased out for several reasons, including high cost, Shafudah says.
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