Dlamini ‘bypassed’ officials, helped create grants crisis, says Dangor

Former director general for the department of social development Zane Dangor filed an explosive affidavit on Monday detailing the extent of Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini’s role in the “self-created” grants crisis. 

Dangor’s affidavit was filed in response to Dlamini’s submission on the reasons she should not personally foot the legal bill from her own pocket over the recent grants debacle.

The ConCourt ordered the minister to file her response before March 31, a deadline she met by submitting her response electronically.

In her submission, Dlamini said she was not responsible for the crisis and laid the blame solely at the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) CEO Thokozani Magwaza and the welfare department’s door.

According to News24, Dangor’s explosive affidavit revealed Dlamini bypassed officials from the department and essentially contributed to the creation of a crisis that would ensure Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) would continue managing and distributing social grant payments on behalf of the department. 

Dangor alleges Dlamini created a “parallel structure where so-called work streams” led by executives other than those from the department.

These officials allegedly advised the minister on the best way to obey a 2014 Constitutional Court ruling that declared the CPS contract constitutionally invalid and ordered the department to find a new distributor for the social grants.

The former director-general alleged that the creation of “parallel decision-making structures in the form of the work streams” may have been intentional to make sure the relationship with CPS continued under conditions that favoured the company, through a self-generated crisis. 

Dangor’s explosive affidavit follows Magwaza’s submission last week Wednesday to the ConCourt, repudiating Dlamini’s allegations that she was not solely to blame for the crisis that gripped the country last month.

EWN reported that Magwaza wanted permission from the ConCourt to file his own papers to give an account of the events that took place during the Sassa payment debacle.

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