Over the past decade and a half the South African social grant payment system has changed several times -- but, debt has been part and parcel of each new system. Between 2012 and 2015, the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) outsourced the payment of cash transfers to a private corporation, who compelled grantees to use their state entitlements as collateral for credit. Then, in 2017, the Black Sash filed an application with the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) to end this contract, and shift from an ostensibly 'private' service provider to an ostensibly 'public' one via the Post Office. From 2018-2022 the under-resourced, under-capacitated Post Office struggled to deliver grants, compelling people to use their state entitlements as collateral for credit, albeit in new ways. As such, this paper reflects on the assumption that 'the state' or 'the public' is a better solution to the private sector. Civil society initially assumed a state agency would necessarily be an antidote to a predatory private one. While one arm of the state, the Court, proved visionary and progressive in its judgments, another arm of the state, the Post Office, proved ineffective at implementing them due to years of austerity. This raises questions about the possibilities and limitations of romanticizing the state (particularly amid neoliberalism, state capture) and considers the types of interventions necessary to undo predatory financial capitalism.
WISER Seminar Papers
- WISER's TRUST seminar is hosted on-line every Monday afternoon from 16:00 - 17:00 SA time during the teaching semester. Forthcoming seminars are available here, and past events are detailed in our archive.
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- Participants should please read the paper (below) prior to the seminar; it will typically be available by the Friday preceding the seminar.
In this semester, the Trust seminar will explore questions of credit and debt on the African continent. In contrast with the argument that trust and confidence are synonymous (most evident in the Edelman Trust Barometer and the reporting around it), some of the most convincing scholarship argues for the direct association of trust with credit. Other researchers, studying informal African institutions, have found credit everywhere on this continent, but little that can be associated with trust. Some state institutions (like SACCOs in Kenya) and simpler penalties, like efficient bankruptcy laws, seem also to be instrumental in shaping the politics of credit. One key driver of credit systems is a secondary market, which depends in part on institutions and information that derive from (and support) fiduciaries. These are especially important in the contemporary tensions between firm-based and individualised credit systems. The seminar series this semester will explore some of these dynamics, examining how they have shaped the cultures and politics of debt and credit from the precolonial to the contemporary period.
Presented by : Erin Torkelson
14 Oct 2026 - 4:00pm
WISER Research Theme: