Sassa shenanigans to haunt Dlamini
THE Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse has asked Public Protector Busi Mkhwebane to probe former minister of social development Bathabile Dlamini for allegedly misleading Parliament on multimillion-rand tenders to train young people and provide awareness to beneficiaries of grants.
Yesterday, Outa’s Dominique Msibi filed a formal complaint with Mkhwebane, alleging that Dlamini, who is now Minister of Women in the Presidency, contravened the Executive Ethics Act when she gave contradictory responses to questions asked by the DA in Parliament.
According to Msibi, the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) invited proposals from potential service providers to be “accredited” for the provision of Project Mikondzo Event Management Services to be performed through outreach programmes for a period of three years.
The deadline for the project was February 25, 2016. The terms of reference was to recruit, train and manage youth workers and provide education and awareness campaigns for social grant beneficiaries.
On July 4, 2016, Sassa awarded a tender to Azande Consulting and Vee El Promotions.
Msibi alleges that Dlamini, when asked about the Mikondzo contract, told Parliament that the accreditation was awarded to Azande Consulting and Vee El Promotions on June 23, 2016.
In total Sassa paid out R80.7 million for Project Mikondzo since the accreditation date – R52.4m for Azande and R28.3m for Vee El Promotions.
According to Outa, Azande was paid R235m from June 2016 to August 2017.
Azande was also, according to Outa, given a R488m tender as part of the Integrated Community Registration Outreach Programme.
“Both contracts were adver- tised as calls for businesses to register to work on these projects, using an additional Sassa database which was effectively outside the National Treasury central supplier database. Parliament immediately raised concerns but these were downplayed and ridiculed by the minister,” Msibi said.
“The real concern was never addressed: Why did Sassa award single contracts as opposed to spreading the contracts among a group of service providers?’’
Msibi said evidence had shown that both tenders were granted without following due process and were for services which could either have been performed in-house or were entirely unnecessary.
“The work was cynically presented as community outreach programmes to help the most vulnerable citizens – including children – to access social grants and assistance,” Msibi said.
The Ministry of Women said it would respond today.
‘Why did Sassa award single contracts?’