Publications
Partners
The social grants saga is reaching crisis level, not only is the April 1 deadline looming but to date there has been no concrete solution or transparency from head of social development, Minister Bathabile Dlamini.
Almost on a daily basis there is a new call for heads to roll and someone to account for the current grant situation.
Here are the prominent parties and orginisations calling for the head of Dlamini, who has presided over this potential social grant crisis.
“The minister and her team in the department need to take political responsibility for this crisis, be it resigning or being dismissed,” Cosatu’s statement read by general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali stated.
“They have failed to deal decisively with the irregular expenditure and irregular tender procedures that have resulted in the threat to livelihoods of 17 million grant beneficiaries. This is not just an administrative bungling but it is a political own goal that smells of corruption.”
Bridget Masango DA member of Parliament:
“The DA cannot, as a matter of conscience, trust Bathabile Dlamini with the livelihoods of 17 million poor and vulnerable South Africans, and urgently calls on President Jacob Zuma to hand over the negotiations of the grants payment process to the Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan.
Minister Dlamini has allowed for this situation to reach crisis point. The president must appoint national treasury to take the lead role in the negotiations for a new service provider, in terms of Section 97 of the Constitution, in order to ensure that this process is cost effective and transparent.”
IFP MP Liezl van der Merwe continued the attack on Dlamini saying:
“I think it is very unfortunate it took us the whole month to get the truth when on February 2 we were served with half truths. But minister, let me be frank, I think you and your department have been negligent and beyond this negligence you have shown complete disregard for the 2014 Constitutional Court order, and you have shown complete disregard for the reputation, the dignity and the authority of the Constitutional Court. The court told you in 2014 already to prepare yourself for 1 April 2017.”
But ANC MPs have rallied behind the minister in Parliament.
“I don’t see a natural disaster here. We [the ANC] have been paying grants for 23 years and we have not stopped paying grants. I don’t see how that will stop in April,” MP Hope Malgas said last month.
Corruption Watch has also called for Dlamini to be fired stating that “this is arguably the most serious scandal to emerge in democratic South Africa. At stake are the lives of the most deprived people in South Africa.”
“We are certain that those millions of people for whom the social grant is a life and death matter and who have been caused unimaginable anxiety by Dlamini’s disgraceful conduct would welcome her immediate departure from public life,” director David Lewis said in a statement.
