Wasteful spending: Sassa pursues Dlamini
THE South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) is pushing ahead with recovering R3.5 million incurred for VIP protection services for the children of former social development minister Bathabile Dlamini and her former spokesperson.
This emerged in Sassa’s annual report for 2018-19 which was tabled in Parliament last week.
The R3.5m was incurred about five years ago and was recorded in the past financial years as fruitless and wasteful expenditure, a move that prompted an investigation.
It now forms part of the R83 373 399 fruitless and wasteful expenditure disclosed in Sassa finances as at March 2019.
In the annual report, Sassa chief executive Busisiwe Memela-Khambula said the R3 499 606 related to VIP protection provided to the children of Dlamini and Social Development Department communication chief director Lumka Oliphant and her children. “Sassa sourced and paid for this service when it should not have been its responsibility,” Memela-Khambula said.
She said the entity engaged in the recovery of the funds from Dlamini, the former Sassa chief executive and Oliphant.
“The summonses were issued against the three. The former CEO of Sassa and the chief director for communication have filed their plea to defend themselves, thus the legal process is under way,” Memela-Khumbula said.
Although Memela-Khambula does not name the Sassa chief executive, Virginia Petersen had been the entity’s head.
Last year, Sassa informed the standing committee on public accounts that it had instituted a process to recoup R3.5m from former chief executive Virginia Petersen for authorising the VIP protection for Dlamini and Oliphant’s children.
The fruitless and wasteful expenditure first surfaced in the entity’s financial statements in the 2014-15 financial year.