ANC Women’s League president Bathabile Dlamini was reportedly driven to tears after she was confronted by a mob of angry residents in New Brighton.
Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini failed to mention in her testimony this week that the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) has appointed new “workstreams” at a hefty price tag of just over R11-million.
The appointment is for an initial three months but the agency aims to employ the worksteams to conduct work for eight months. The agency is waiting for the treasury to give it the go-ahead.
The decision comes as Dlamini is being grilled at an inquiry set up to investigate her role in putting millions of grant beneficiaries’ payments in jeopardy by appointing workstreams that ran parallel processes to that of Sassa. The teams reported directly to the minister.
In 2016 Dlamini hand-picked certain people to lead the workstreams and Sassa paid about R50-million for a few months’ work that had no effect on whether or not beneficiaries were paid by April 2017.
Instead it was found that the process followed by Dlamini and her cohorts was irregular and the then-chief executive, Thokozani Magwaza, fired the teams.
Dlamini’s spokesperson, Lumka Oliphant, claims the workstream contracts came to an end early last year.
It has been six months since the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) lauded Magwaza for terminating the workstreams, but Sassa’s current chief executive, Pearl Bhengu, and head of special projects, Zodwa Mvulane, are bringing at least one of the streams back for a minimum of three months.
According to documents seen by the Mail & Guardian dated December last year, Mvulane requested that Bhengu sign off on the appointment of Rangewave Consulting to provide advisory and technical services to the agency.
Bhengu approved the appointment on December 15 last year.
The director of Rangewave is Patrick Monyeki, who was one of those hand-picked by Dlamini in the original workstreams. Back in 2016 his consulting company was awarded the biggest chunk of the contract.
Rangewave pocketed R35-million to lead the information and business systems management workstream.
“The procurement of services from Rangewave at the total cost of R11 579 135 … on time and material not exceeding three months,” read the documents. “Ideally the services procured are required for at least eight months to allow for phasing-in of both Sapo [the South African Post Office] and the new cash payment service provider while phasing-out CPS [Cash Paymaster Services].”
According to sources inside the agency, Rangewave has already started attending meetings and had compiled the cash payment contract that Sassa advertised last year.
Sassa spokesperson Kgomoco Diseko defended the decision, saying that the workstream had been appointed because the panel of experts appointed by the Constitutional Court “stated in their report of 12 September 2017 that Sassa does not have the technical expertise to deliver on a project of this magnitude”.
“In compliance with these concerns, Sassa duly appointed a team of technical advisory services. The appointment process was made in full compliance with supply chain management processes of Sassa as outlined in the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), of 1999,” he said.
But the panel of experts actually stated that Sassa should obtain the services from the government technical advisory centre, which is directly linked to the treasury.
Only if the centre did not have the necessary expertise could Sassa appoint another adviser.
Diseko did not specify whether Sassa had consulted the centre or treasury before the appointment of Rangewave.
The documents state that Mvulane asked Rangewave to send a quotation on a closed procurement process to Sassa’s supply chain management. Similar to the previous procurement process, the appointment was urgent because the agency signed a contract on December 8 with the Post Office.
In the document Mvulane claims that they would have to develop a plan with tight deadlines that entailed intense negotiations to unpack the technical aspects of the services.
The document states that Rangewave had worked with Sassa before and the experts had concluded their phase one report in July last year.
“To ensure continuity, expediency, value as well as precision considering the urgency of the implementation of the programme, the project office recommends that Rangewave be approached on an emergency basis.
“The Rangewave team will guide the negotiation and signing of the service level agreements that will lead to the implementation and planning by parties,” reads the document.
Diseko stated that the “technical and advisory team” would consist of 12 people who would work closely with Sassa officials responsible for the payment project.
“Part of this team will provide full time service and others will provide ad-hoc services over the contract period. The technical and advisory team will report to the accounting authority of Sassa,” he said.
Treasury had not responded at the time of publishing to confirm whether a deviation had been requested and approved.