Sassa CEO accuses Dlamini of lying
• Magwaza responds to Dlamini blaming officials
Sassa CEO Thokozani Magwaza has accused Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini of lying in her affidavit to the Constitutional Court about what caused the social-grants fiasco.
South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) CEO Thokozani Magwaza has accused Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini of lying in her affidavit to the Constitutional Court about what caused the social-grants payments fiasco.
Magwaza said that he wanted to set the record straight and had asked the court to let him file an affidavit in response to Dlamini’s to reflect the “correct version of events”.
Dlamini filed an affidavit on Friday, explaining why she should not be added to the urgent application brought by the Black Sash in her personal capacity and why she should not pay costs out of her pocket.
If the court finds Dlamini lied in her affidavit, she could be prosecuted.
Under common law, supplemented by statutory law, namely the Criminal Procedure Act, perjury is a serious offence.
The Constitutional Court ordered in March that Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) continue to pay grants for 12 months, after it was found Sassa could not take over distribution despite previously saying it could.
In her affidavit, Dlamini blamed the Sassa fiasco on the agency’s officials, specifically Magwaza.
In his letter to the top court, Magwaza wrote: “I perused the affidavit filed by the minister of the Department of Social Development, and noted that similar to the confirmatory affidavit she previously filed … it contains factors that are inaccurate.”
He said that, if the court gave him permission, he was ready to file an affidavit to “reflect the correct version” of events.
Lumka Oliphant, Dlamini’s spokeswoman, told Business Day on Wednesday that the minister respected Magwaza’s constitutional right to approach the court on any matter.
Dlamini was able to escape unscathed in last week’s latenight cabinet reshuffle when President Jacob Zuma kept her in her position at the Department of Social Development despite calls for the minister to be fired.
On Wednesday, the ANC’s secretary-general, Gwede Mantashe, defended the decision to keep Dlamini in her post. “There is an issue about social grants, a big issue … [But] all of a sudden, people forget that Minister Dlamini has taken that department from disclaimers to three clean audits,” he told journalists in Johannesburg during a briefing on the extended meeting of the party’s national working committee meeting at which the reshuffle was discussed.
“All of a sudden, that must go down the tube because there is an incident now.
“We think that the way South Africans in the public domain judge the individuals is actually an emotional one rather than an objective assessment of individuals,” said Mantashe.
A decision to remove a minister could not be based on an event. Mantashe said the ANC believed that underperformance by ministers had to be looked into and said this was raised with the president, but he would not say which ministers had been discussed.