Dlamini’s day of reckoning draws closer
Although the Teflon minister remains unscathed, misleading Parliament may come back to bite her
As questions were mounting about the crisis developing in the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) in recent months, President Jacob Zuma expressed his confidence in his social development minister, Bathabile Dlamini, and the ANC did its best to shield her from criticism in Parliament.
But on Thursday the government said it would consider “consequence management” of Sassa once the current fire was put out.
A ministerial task team on Sassa had not yet considered the “conduct” of Dlamini, Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe said at a briefing this week; that would happen after the Constitutional Court being risked by a government so cavalier it does not deign to respond to the situation as a crisis.
Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini’s lawyer admitted to the Constitutional Court this week that the minister was “remiss” in fulfilling her responsibilities.
Yet the president told the National had made its ruling.
It echoed what ANC spokesperson Zizi Kodwa said on the steps of the Constitutional Court on Wednesday — the court would help to determine “who was asleep on the job”.
This week, Dlamini again said there was no crisis at Sassa. The claims to the contrary were nothing more than opposition propaganda, she told Parliament.
But the Black Sash, which is seeking court oversight of the shambles, saw it very differently, as advocate Geoff Budlender told the Constitutional Court the next day.
“Anyone who is not anxious ... is simply not paying attention,” he said.
On Thursday, the court reserved judgment on the matter following a dramatic hearing, during which judges demanded answers and refused to accept fudged replies. It was a stunning display of judicial ire.
That Dlamini had not been paying attention — that, at best, she had been negligent to a staggering degree — seemed to weigh heavily on the justices. How could she possibly not have known, for a full six months, that Sassa had concluded it would be unable to pay social grants come April 2017? How could she have been so utterly lacking in initiative at first, then so utterly sanguine about the looming disaster once she learned about it?
Again and again, Dlamini’s advocate, Andrew Breitenbach, was pummelled with demands for details, for explanations — the same demands that have been shouted angrily by parliamentarians and aired in the media for months.
“I cannot enlighten you on that,” was the best Breitenbach could do.
Then, still under fire, he repeated the big lie told on Dlamini’s behalf in court papers, confirmed by her under oath, and which will likely be at the centre of all arguments for her dismissal — that she had not misled Parliament.
Dlamini and her department, Breitenbach said, had been honest with Parliament at a November 30 meeting of the portfolio committee on social development. There, it had been “made quite plain that the timelines will not be met”.
A recording of the meeting paints a different picture, revealing that, although she equivocated about the timing, she stood by as Sassa chief executive officer Thokozani Magwaza said his agency would be ready to pay grants come April 2017.
“We will try and show the committee that we are ready to take over on the first of April,” Magwaza told the committee as part of his prepared remarks, as Dlamini sat silent.
The presentation that followed, with its mention of delays in specific areas of technology, left MPs across the spectrum with many questions, the most pressing being: Will Sassa be ready to handle grant payments come April 1 2017? Dlamini’s answer was less direct.
“We have outlined our options but I think now we are called upon to give a full account of our contingency plan here. And that has implications. It’s going to put some at an advantage but also it’s going to put the work we are doing at risk. And therefore, with due respect, we don’t want to risk the work we are doing.”
Documents before the court show that, at that time, Dlamini had known for at least a month that Sassa believed there was no possible way it could pay grants come April.
For the Black Sash, at least, the implications are clear. “The minister grievously misled the portfolio committee of the National Assembly, and she and Sassa both did that,” Budlender told the court.
And, the Post Office added, had Dlamini disclosed the true state of affairs at that time, it could have been ready to distribute the grants, according to its submissions.
Answering questions in Parliament on Thursday, Zuma said the disarray at Sassa was not a crisis but an “unfortunate episode”, which the government deeply regretted.
He insisted that he could take no action against her because nothing had gone wrong yet — because only on April 1 would there be a mistake.
“So why punish somebody before anything happens?” he asked.