Sassa
The chief executive of the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa), Thokozani Magwaza, said on Monday that he does not believe Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini should be fired.
Magwaza was responding to a memorandum of demands he received from civic organisation Right2Know. One of its demands is that Dlamini must resign or be axed. The Democratic Alliance (DA), the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), and labour federation Cosatu have also called for Dlamini’s removal.
But Magwaza says he believes that Dlamini has done all she can to secure grants and believes the minister should remain in office.
“On top of that, I stand by my minister because I’ve been working with her all this time and she has been on the side of trying to do certain things. Other things that have been happening that have been out of her control,” he said.
“I don’t think she must go. She has done what she is supposed to have done.”
Right2Know protested outside the Sassa building in Pretoria in solidarity with an application filed by the Black Sash, a social justice organisation that has sought to safeguard the needs of grant beneficiaries.
In its application filed at the Constitutional Court, the Black Sash has requested the court reinstate its supervisory role over Sassa and approve Cash Paymaster Service (CPS) as a service provider to deliver grants. The Black Sash argues that without CPS, Sassa will be unable to pay grants on April 1.
Right2Know has demanded in its memorandum that grants must be paid on time with no delays and no deductions. Currently, a court case is pending to have deductions declared illegal after it emerged that beneficiaries would receive less grant money because of unauthorised deductions.
Magwaza, however, stuck to the Sassa line of response that grants would be paid timeously, but did not clarify how.
“We are standing by that irrespective of how they are going to be paid, we are dealing with that,” he said.
He went on to say that while Sassa has been accused of delay tactics in securing a delivery system to pay grants, a string of mishaps had prevented the agency from securing a payment method sooner.
Sassa has had almost three years to decide on a grant delivery system after a Constitutional Court ruling in 2014 declared the CPS contract unlawful. CPS’s contract expires on March 31.
Magwaza suggested that Sassa has been unable to control the crisis it finds itself in. He claimed that bidders in the tender process to find a service provider to pay grants could not meet Sassa’s requirements.
The Concourt issued a directive to Sassa last Wednesday, compelling the agency to provide details on who was responsible for deciding Sassa could not pay grants itself and when it became known that Sassa would need a service provider to deliver grants.
The agency must submit its answers to the court by later today. Magwaza said Sassa was looking at the affidavit it planned to submit in response to the Concourt.
“As you are calling me, we are looking at the affidavit to submit to the Constitutional Court, answering those questions,” he said.