Context

The South African Social Security Agency $($SASSA$)$ has faced persistent challenges in making payments to social grant recipients timeously and without error. In large part this can be attributed, first, to weaknesses in the management of beneficiaries entitlement determinationsLinks to an external site. on a monthly basis and second, to the outsourcing of the payment systems $-$ in particular to Postbank Links to an external site.in the recent past and Cash Paymaster Services $($CPS$)$Links to an external site.a few years ago.

Weaknesses in the former aspect lead to incorrect, as well as susceptibility to fraudulent determinations. As a consequence, many income vulnerable households are unable to access grants timeously, notwithstanding considerable administrative hurdles faced in the application process. Weaknesses in the latter aspect result in payment delays, which lead to considerable uncertainty and hardship, particularly for older and disabled beneficiaries.

Assignment

You form part of a multidisciplinary technical team, reporting to the executive management of SASSA, that has been given task of developing a strategy to reconfigure operational features of the organisation to become more responsive to the needs of beneficiaries. There are two specific tasks that must be accomplished. First, a revised beneficiary management system is required to determined eligibility for benefits on a monthly basis. Second, an improved approach is required for benefit payments $-$ which may include a mix of insourcing and outsourcing.

As part of this task, provide the following:

Provide a systemic review of the operational features of SASSA focusing on either $(1)$ beneficiary management or $(2)$ payments systems.

Based on your findings, develop a strategic way forward, taking account of the course material addressing strategy development and execution.

As part of the strategy, identify key implementation risks together with approaches to mitigate them.

Please note that it is accepted that you are not experts in the operational aspects of SASSA or its payment systems. The purpose of the exercise is for you to demonstrate your critical understanding of the module material and how best to apply it in a given context. Your systematic review can be based on reasonable and plausible inferences based on the external weaknesses that have been made public. PROVIDE INTRODUCTION FOR THIS