Catastrophic indecision

THIS week we came face to face with two very different crises – both avoidable, but both with very different outcomes.The roof at the entrance of the Charlotte Maxeke hospital collapsed on Thursday afternoon. Thousands could have been injured, or even killed, but in the end only six people were hurt.

Within hours, the Gauteng premier was on site, along the national minister of health and the new Gauteng health MEC. The communication was clear and prompt.

The contrast with the South African Social Security Agency, and the looming crisis that potentially could leave 17 million South Africans without their critically needed grants next month, could not be starker.

For a start, the Constitutional Court ruled at the end of 2014, that the current contract awarded to Cash Paymaster Services was illegal. the Department of Social Development was given a grace period of almost two and half years to come up with an alternative solution.

It hasn’t. Instead it wants permission to continue using CPS to save the 17 million affected recipients. The responsible minister, Bathabile Dlamini, has not appeared before parliament Standing Committee on Public Accounts over the apparently unauthorised expenditure of R1 billion.

Civil society organisations are deeply concerned. Cosatu has called for Dlamini to be removed. It’s not an unreasonable request. The response though by the ANC Women’s League, which Dlamini heads, has bordered on the hysterical, while the government’s response has been so low key, it borders on indifference.

Dlamini should step down, but sadly it would appear that, unlike the Gauteng government, not everyone has taken the lessons of Esidimeni to heart.