‘Reengineering’: Sassa chief executive Totsie Memela-Khambula plans to trim down the ‘top heavy’ agency
The R2-billion in losses racked up by the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) over the 2019-22 financial period could lead to its “top heavy” management structure being culled. The embattled agency also stated in an internal note that R1.2-billion was on fruitless and irregular expenditure, some of which dates as far back as 2014.
In an interview with the Mail & Guardian last week, Sassa chief executive Totsie Memela-Khambula did not mince her words when she said Sassa had to relook at its “cumbersome structure”, which has 22 people reporting to her.
She said the agency’s nine provincial manager positions have already been reduced to three because six were “Hollywood acting roles”. She had decided to give the three permanent regional managers more responsibilities while Sassa underwent its “business reengineering process”.
The M&G reported recently that one of the managers tasked with more responsibility was Themba Matlou, who oversees Mpumalanga, the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal. This was despite Matlou being implicated in an August 2020 internal investigation that unearthed gross corruption in the disbursement of R1.3-million in just two months to four companies for cleaning contracts in Gauteng while he was that region’s manager.
In addition to the nine regional managers, 13 executives at Sassa’s Tshwane head office reported to Memela-Khambula. She said this was an ineffective structure the entity was reviewing.
“How effective can you be with 22 people that you need to be managing?” Memela-Khambula asked.
She said the “reengineering” of the agency would reveal how many regional managers Sassa required to operate efficiently.
“But it would definitely not be nine because that is top heavy. Even at head office, the number of executives I have reporting to me, it’s just too many people.
“And I can’t be effective and be able to deliver in terms of moving the company [from] where it is to where it should be if I continue not to ensure that our business processes are better than what they are.”
She added that restructuring would also ensure better accountability.
“We actually have a situation where we will be losing R2-billion in this current [medium-term period] as an institution and, therefore, we can’t continue to say: ‘It’s business as usual’ because it is not.
“I mean, already, in this past year, we lost R500-million. This coming [2021-22 financial] year, we are going to lose R650-million. And R350-million is going to be just for the cost of employees. So, it can’t be business as usual.”
The current medium-term expenditure period began in the previous financial year.
Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu said in a parliamentary briefing on 25 May that Sassa will administer R195.5-billion in grants to 18-million people in the 2021-22 financial year. For the entity to achieve this, Zulu added, it would be given a budget of R7.4-billion.
Asked whether the restructuring would result in job losses, Memela-Khambula said she did not want to preempt the outcome until the “scientific process” was complete.
“What I know is that to have 50 general managers, which is like having 50 chief directors, even though we manage the amount of money that we do, I think that is a bit much.
“[This is why] I have not filled many vacant general manager roles … because I thought it important to go through a scientific process for us to make a decision in terms of what kind of structure we need,” she said.
“I don’t know who is going to lose their job and who is not going to lose their job, and I don’t want to preempt what the business process re-engineering is going to bring out. But what I know is that this work that we are doing now should have been done 15 years ago.”
Sassa’s chief financial officer, Tsakeriwa Chauke, said the agency had R1.2-billion in irregular expenditure dating back to 2014, according to the internal note.
“The backlog in irregular expenditure depends on primarily two main areas. One is the implementation of the corrective measures, which means those that were found to have incurred the regular expenditure. We have corrected that.
“We have nine regional offices, and the only region that is currently not affected by this is Limpopo, which doesn’t have any cases of irregular expenditure.
“It is quite an involved process. We had 809 cases when we started the year 2020/2021,” Chauke said in the internal document.
Memela-Khambula said she had roped in the state attorney’s office to assist Sassa with consequence management through the use of independent legal experts.
The chief executive added that other law enforcement and state organs, such as the Special Investigating Unit and the Hawks, were also called on to assist Sassa when alleged corruption was exposed.
This included the R45.6-million “jobs-for-pals” cleaning tender in the Eastern Cape, which the M&G reported on, where allegations of nepotism were made. The Eastern Cape tender was awarded to Kwasa Food Services, the director of which is Peter Mama, who is allegedly the brother-in-law of Mziwonke Mekuto. Mekuto is Sassa’s acting general manager for corporate services in the Eastern Cape and chaired committees that evaluated the cleaning tender bids.
Memela-Khambula said the tender was still being investigated by the Hawks and the SIU. She said that should wrongdoing be found in the Eastern Cape contract, or any other tender, she would not hesitate to act against any official implicated in wrongdoing.
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