Social services on track for
No one’s sure whether, come April 1, social grants will be paid out as the agency bungles the process of bringing the system in-house
In coming weeks the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) will put a gun to the head of the Constitutional Court. The court, Sassa will say, has no option but to condone its plan to extend, by another year, a contract that has already been unlawful for two years, because failure to do so would imperil the payment of lifeline social grants to some 17-million people.
But Sassa’s gun will not be loaded. On Wednesday the agency’s chief executive, Thokozani Magwaza, all but said that Sassa would go ahead and extend the illegal contract anyway, because there is no other option.
“If we got to choose between paying the grants and irregular [expenditure], and if the country is going to burn on April 1 or irregular [expenditure], I choose irregular,” he told a parliamentary portfolio committee.
Although that course of action removes the risk of riots on the streets, it will put the government in knowing, direct violation of the law, flouting the rules intended to protect the public purse.
If the Constitutional Court were to put its foot down it would be painted as the villain, ready to see people suffer for the sake of the law in a situation where those responsible are desperately seeking to duck responsibility.
Sassa has known since at least October 2015 that it must take over the payment of social grants on April1 this year, when its contract with Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) ends. The Constitutional Court confirmed in 2014 that the contract had been awarded irregularly, but allowed it to continue to run while Sassa built replacement infrastructure so as not to interrupt grant payments.
For 13 months Sassa made no tangible move towards meeting that insourcing obligation. Then, in December last year, it started to scramble to collect information that would allow it to issue a tender.
On Wednesday, after ducking questions for months, it admitted for the first time that it would not be ready — less than two months before the deadline.
“We need to come and acknowledge that, yes, we have failed,” Sassa executive manager Raphaahle Ramokgopa told Parliament’s social development committee.
But nobody could be held responsible for that failure, it seems. Both he and the predecessor he replaced in November had done their jobs, said Magwaza, and he could think of nobody who could be considered culpable for the delays.
And it would be unfair to criticise the politician responsible for Sassa, Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini, in her absence, said committee chair Rosemary Capa.
At various other points during a meeting she abruptly ended, Capa also held that there was no need for Dlamini to attend such a meeting and that it was playing at politics to demand that she be summoned.
Dlamini, who is also the ANC Women’s League’s president, and social development director general Zane Dangor were apparently attending a Cabinet lekgotla on Wednesday, amid rumours of a looming reshuffle of ministers.
Whereas the Democratic Alliance and Inkatha Freedom Party reacted with shock and outrage, ANC members of the committee closed ranks around Dlamini and Sassa.
“I am comforted,” said ANC MP Patrick Mabilo of Sassa’s declaration that all will be well come April 1, with all payments to be handled by CPS — even though the agency had no legal permission to go that route and had not yet started any negotiations with CPS.
None of the MPs asked Sassa any of the burning questions that arose from its presentation, instead spending the time bickering about issues such as whether Dlamini had been on ANC or women’s league business when she had not attended their meeting the prior week.
Sassa answered very few questions from journalists. Despite repeated promises of a press conference on the grant payment system, Magwaza said further questions would have to be submitted in writing.
Committee chair Rosemary Capa said there is no need for Minister Bathabile Dlamini to attend such a meeting