Former Department of Social Development minister Bathabile Dlamini should be held accountable for last year’s grants payment crisis, an inquiry into the matter has heard.
Senior Counsel Geoff Bundlender for Black Sash, made the submission this morning in his closing arguments before retired Judge Bernard Ngoepe, who is chairing the inquiry.
He argued that Dlamini lied when she told the inquiry that she was unaware that the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) would not meet the March 31 2017, deadline set by the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court had found that the Sassa contract with CPS, the company in charge of distributing its grants was unlawful. It then gave Sassa until the end of March last year to find an alternative option for distribution.
Dlamini testified that Sassa had only informed her in October 2016 that the deadline would not be met.
“The workstreams reported directly to the minister through (Zodwa) Mvulane (project manager) this bypassing. The minister met ‘regularly’ and ‘frequently’ with Mvulane to receive updates on Sassa’s state of readiness to insource the payment of social grants,” Bundlender argued.
In her evidence, said Bundlender, the minister “was evasive as to whether she asked Mvulane at those meetings, whether the process was on track”, and what the project executive had told her.
He argued that there were three possibilities for Dlamini’s “evasiveness”.
One could be that the minister had not asked if the process was on track. “If that is the case, it is the clearest evidence of dereliction of duty,” he said.
The second possibility was that Dlamini had asked Mvulane and she was told the truth.
“If that is the case, the minister was in gross dereliction of duty because she should have acted immediately. She did nothing,” argued Bundlender.
The last possibility, according to Budlender, was that Mvulane might had lied for six months when questioned by Dlamini.
“In that event, the minister ought to have fired Mvulane or at least taken disciplinary action against her when the truth was told to her in October 2016. The minister did not do so,” said Bundlender.
The fact that the minister did not take action suggested that this was not what happened, he said.
“The minister is to be held accountable for the crisis of March 2017,” he said.
“On any basis, the minister failed in her duties -in her responsibilities for ensuring that Sassa carried out the undertakings which it had made to the Constitutional Court and in respect of her duty to report promptly to the Constitutional Court when it became clear that Sassa would not carry out those undertakings.”