Is Sassa CEO ‘sick’ because of the mess he created?

Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) has just wrapped up its Tuesday morning interrogation of the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) and the department of social development.

It was most disappointed that CEO Thokozani Magwaza had been booked off for seven days due to hypertension, according to the department’s deputy director-general, Zane Dangor.

Minister Bathabile Dlamini had not appeared either. Committee chairperson Themba Godi said it was “unfortunate” Dlamini had decided not to attend the serious meeting, instead choosing to  host a press briefing as chairperson of the social protection, community and human development cluster in Parliament at 11am.

Godi wanted to know whether Magwaza had become ill with hypertension because of the crisis he had been overseeing at his agency, which has more than R1 billion in unauthorised expenditure.

An acting CEO was appointed on Monday night after Magwaza’s sudden suspension, which only made the news on Tuesday.

It emerged that Sassa’s Zodwa Mvulane admitted there was no programme in place to deliver grants to 17 million people on 1 April 2017 and an illegal contract with Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) would need to be renegotiated at a much higher rate.

The Constitutional Court declared the contract illegal and gave the department the April deadline to send out a new tender and get a legal solution in place.

The department appears to have taken no action, in the apparent hope that the illegal contract will simply continue by default, even though CPS has now said they will be charging far more for their services in that case. Any new contract will cost a great deal more money.

The proposed fee for distribution per recipient has now gone up to R22-R25, which DA MP Timothy Brauteseth questioned, since this would take social grants way over budget.

He said the jump from R16 to R22 was a 30% increase, and R25 would be a 50% jump.

ANC MP Mnyamezeli Booi earlier said they were used to Sassa officials dodging Parliament. He said Magwaza had declared publicly in November last year that he would take responsibility for the Sassa social grants crisis, but that had not happened.