New acting Sassa CEO raises eyebrows
PEARL BHENGU: CLOSE PAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT MINISTER BATHABILE DLAMINI HASTILY BROUGHT IN
Question mark hangs over why Magwaza was abruptly sacked and replaced by ANCWL insider.
Pearl Bhengu’s appointment as acting South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) CEO has raised a few eyebrows. She has close ties to Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini and is a member of the ANC Woman’s League (ANCWL), of which Dlamini is the president. She replaces the abruptly ousted Thokozani Magwaza.
Although Bhengu has extensive financial and managerial experience, from the banking industry and from her role as head of Sassa in KwaZulu-Natal since 2012, her close relationship with Dlamini has been widely criticised.
With Bhengu at the helm on an acting basis, Dlamini is now expected to have her way when it comes to Sassa’s preparations to take over social grant payments or have another service provider be responsible for the payments beyond the incumbent Cash Paymaster Services (CPS).
Magwaza, who was appointed CEO of Sassa in June 2016, clashed with Dlamini over the handling of social grants payments and later cancelled the work streams that looked at Sassa taking over the payments when CPS’s contract expired in March 2018.
The work streams were cancelled after National Treasury, in its investigations, found that the R47 million spent on the work streams was irregular. Magwaza has been with the social development department, which supervises Sassa, for nearly five years.
The Democratic Alliance’s spokesperson on social development, Bridget Masango, said Bhengu comes into her new Sassa role “cold” as she expected a more senior executive at a crucial time when the agency has a constitutional mandate to replace the CPS contract with that of another service provider. “We heard rumours that Bhengu is very close to the minister and she was given body guards in KZN, using Sassa funds for nonrelated agency events,” said Masango, but this couldn’t be confirmed by Moneyweb.
“It’s also concerning that a CEO would be changed when we are slap in the middle of the deadline [to appoint another service provider for social grant payments].”
CPS’s contract, which was initially declared invalid in 2015 as it didn’t go through the proper tender processes, was extended by the Constitutional Court for another year ending March 2018. This gives Sassa time to take over social grant payments to 10.6 million beneficiaries or appoint another service provider.
Sassa and the social development department have less than nine months to phase out the current CPS contract. The department said Bhengu’s priority would be to stabilise Sassa.