Vavi lashes cabinet over Sassa scandal

Zwelinzima Vavi File picture: Leon Lestrade/Independent Media

Zwelinzima Vavi File picture: Leon Lestrade/Independent Media

Published Mar 8, 2017

Share

There have been more calls for Minister of Social Development Bathabile Dlamini to resign over the social grants debacle, this time from unions which are part of the new labour federation.

The federation, which is set to hold its founding congress next month, is being spearheaded by the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) and former Cosatu boss Zwelinzima Vavi.

Vavi told journalists yesterday during the federation’s steering committee briefing that they wanted Dlamini to resign over her handling of the South Africa Social Security Agency’s (Sassa) contract with Cash Paymaster Services (CPS), which the Constitutional Court declared unlawful in 2014.

The court had ordered Sassa to reissue the tender and cancel its contract with CPS, but the department had not done so and risked the distribution of grants to millions of beneficiaries.

The federation’s steering committee has gone even further, calling on the entire cabinet to resign for not stepping up and acting on the Constitutional Court’s ruling.

“We have an issue with the entire cabinet, which has been sitting for two years on a deal that the Constitutional Court declared unlawful, that it must be done away with and a full new process started.

“They did nothing, and all of them, in my view, were sleeping on duty,” said Vavi.

“They did that deliberately so they could put a gun to South Africans’ heads so that on the eve of the contract ending, they could turn around and say ‘Sorry, we couldn’t do this, and now we are forced to sign’,” he added.

The federation said the Sassa matter, along with various other social issues, provided the federation with the perfect opportunity to protect and defend workers and citizens from an “uncaring government”.

Vavi announced that the federation, which has branded itself as an “independent, democratic and campaigning union federation”, would host its founding congress in Boksburg from April 21-23.

“We are establishing a new workers’ federation so that we can be a voice and stand up to these bullies, and say that South Africa can liberate itself from those that have no interest in their wellbeing,” said Vavi.

The congress will be attended by 1 800 delegates from 21 unions that have received a mandate from their members to join the federation.

Many of the unions were former Cosatu affiliates. These include Numsa, the biggest union in the country, which was expelled from Cosatu along with Vavi, the Food and Allied Workers Union and some smaller unions.

@ZintleMahlati

Related Topics: