Grants: capture rot continues ...
BILLIONS LOST: GRANTS AGENCY IS A ‘FAILED ENTITY’
The SA Social Security Agency is ‘failed entity’ and ‘personal piggy bank for officials’ – that’s how MPs describe grants distributor.
Its clean-up, like at SOEs, won’t be quick.
While state capture architects have profited from state-owned enterprises, South Africa might have missed the quiet ruin of another key organ of state.
The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa), which plays the critical function of distributing social grants, has all the hallmarks of the destructive state capture project.
The industrial-scale corruption and waste of state resources under the Jacob Zuma years have confirmed the worst fears; that state organs have been captured and the 1994 promise of a state free of corruption has been betrayed.
A Scopa hearing in Parliament revealed that Sassa may as well join the ranks of other tainted institutions.
“A failed entity” and “a personal piggy bank for officials” is how MPs described it, as the agency revealed wasteful expenditure of R1.4 billion for the 2016/17 financial year.
The scale of plunder was under the regime of incompetent former social development minister Bathabile Dlamini and former Sassa acting CEO Pearl Bhengu.
Bhengu signed off contracts worth R16 million for four educational events in KwaZulu-Natal in December 2017 to “educate grant beneficiaries about the new grant system”. Only three of the educational events took place.
Bhengu pushed through the contracts without verifying if any of the costs for the education events were accurate.
The costs were all below R500 000, which would require Bhengu to comply with standard tender and procurement procedures. Bhengu failed to comply with the Public Finance Management Amendment Act.
The costs quoted by suppliers for the events:
A marquee for R485 000 Flooring for R482 000 Chairs and “decor” for R487 000 Catering for R493 000 Transport for R493 000 A sound system for R492 000 Gifts and promotions worth R480 000. For the 2015/16 financial year, the R3.5 million spent on security services for Dlamini and the family of her spokesperson Lumka Oliphant was flagged as irregular.
It blew R42 million on the workstreams – a parallel function that was established in July 2016 and comprised of Dlamini’s handpicked advisors to investigate Sassa’s capacity to take over social grant payments from Cash Paymaster Services. The workstreams were led by Dlamini’s friend Zodwa Mvulane and were cancelled in July 2017 after National Treasury deemed them as irregular expenditure.
Bhengu is no longer the acting Sassa CEO but remains within the agency in KwaZulu-Natal, while Dlamini was shifted to the women’s ministry in the presidency. Their exits don’t absolve them from accountability as both have been called to appear before Scopa for their affinity to splashing taxpayers’ money.
Much is at stake if grant payments to 10.7 million beneficiaries are delayed; SA would descend into social unrest, and the livelihoods of recipients, who are already facing the brunt of government’s service delivery failures, would be in jeopardy.
New social development minister Susan Shabangu promised to “deal with individuals” who engineered the mess.