With a sick, or possibly suspended CEO, no backup plan and a month to pay nearly 18 million social grants, Sassa presented a shambolic picture to parliament yesterday.
Minister Bathabile Dlamini dodged any backlash by simply not attending.
Yesterday, the South African Social Services Agency appeared before parliament’s select committee on public accounts (Scopa) to account for more than R1-billion in irregular expenditure and answer questions on what committee chair Themba Godi called “the elephant in the room” – the payment of social grants on April 1.
However, with Dlamini absent, and acting CEO Thamo Mzobe in the hot seat, the committee quickly realised they would not be getting many answers to their questions.
The committee heard that CEO Thokozwane Magwaza had taken ill, apparently with hypertension, and would be on sick leave for seven days.
Mzobe had officially signed into the position.
However, MPs were skeptical following rumours that Magwaza had been suspended while others questioned whether he was merely been trying to avoid responsibility for the mess Sassa found itself.
Godi told the committee: “At this juncture, it’s more than just administrative, it’s political.
“The real issue is in the economic exclusion of the majority. Sassa is the one that mitigates against a revolution of the poor and if you mess up, then you must know that everything will go up in flames, either practically or in 2019.”
MPs from across party lines were angered that Dlamini and Magwaza were not present to account, while ANC MP Nyami Booi said of the acting CEO “she has no clue what she is doing here”.
Dlamini, meanwhile, told a press conference scheduled for the same time as the committee was sitting that she hadn’t attended because she felt she needed to account to the social development committee, which she had already done last week.
She said at her last appearance before Scopa, the “whole thing became a discussion about grants and I don’t know how we arrived there because what I know is that at Scopa, you discuss issues of unauthorised expenditure”.
She added she “had not seen” a letter suspending the CEO. “Maybe some have seen it. “I just know that the CEO is on sick leave”.
Dlamini ducks as committee grills Sassa over grants fiasco
Minister Bathabile Dlamini dodged any backlash by simply not attending.
Yesterday, the South African Social Services Agency appeared before parliament’s select committee on public accounts (Scopa) to account for more than R1-billion in irregular expenditure and answer questions on what committee chair Themba Godi called “the elephant in the room” – the payment of social grants on April 1.
However, with Dlamini absent, and acting CEO Thamo Mzobe in the hot seat, the committee quickly realised they would not be getting many answers to their questions.
The committee heard that CEO Thokozwane Magwaza had taken ill, apparently with hypertension, and would be on sick leave for seven days.
Mzobe had officially signed into the position.
However, MPs were skeptical following rumours that Magwaza had been suspended while others questioned whether he was merely been trying to avoid responsibility for the mess Sassa found itself.
Godi told the committee: “At this juncture, it’s more than just administrative, it’s political.
“The real issue is in the economic exclusion of the majority. Sassa is the one that mitigates against a revolution of the poor and if you mess up, then you must know that everything will go up in flames, either practically or in 2019.”
MPs from across party lines were angered that Dlamini and Magwaza were not present to account, while ANC MP Nyami Booi said of the acting CEO “she has no clue what she is doing here”.
Dlamini, meanwhile, told a press conference scheduled for the same time as the committee was sitting that she hadn’t attended because she felt she needed to account to the social development committee, which she had already done last week.
She said at her last appearance before Scopa, the “whole thing became a discussion about grants and I don’t know how we arrived there because what I know is that at Scopa, you discuss issues of unauthorised expenditure”.
She added she “had not seen” a letter suspending the CEO. “Maybe some have seen it. “I just know that the CEO is on sick leave”.
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