OUTA encouraged by SASSA CEO's actions

We believe that the minister’s submission to the court was self-serving and did not provide the correct version of events. The information and facts which the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) has supplied to the authorities, provides clear indications that the minister has purposely and consciously avoided accepting any responsibility for the SASSA debacle, as was exposed in the Constitutional Court.

“Minister Dlamini has blamed everybody in the chain of command but herself for the lack of action taken to develop the SASSA solution and thereby exit their reliance on CPS crisis,” says Dominique Msibi, OUTA’s portfolio manager for social services.  “And yet in her haste to apportion the blame on others, she has contradicted herself. We find it strange that the minister gave instructions that the workstream leaders report directly to her, whilst claiming ignorance about the progress of the workstreams and SASSA’s readiness to take over the grant beneficiary payments.”

It is disingenuous for the minister to claim limited knowledge of specific events in this critical area of her responsibility. It was also her responsibility to make sure she was informed.

OUTA recently wrote to the CEO of SASSA, asking him to cancel the contracts with the workstream leaders, as they appear to have been appointed outside the legal processes prescribed by the PFMA. OUTA has it on good authority that none of the required preconditions were achieved, before the workstream contracts were put into place.

Over and above this, the contracts far exceed the amounts allowed for allocation without a proper tender. It is also unclear whether the proper documentation was submitted when payments were made. These payments were made too soon for any deliverables to have been met.

OUTA encourages the CEO to expose the misrepresentation to allow the Constitutional Court to understand fully the depth of deception and to provide the court with sufficient information to apply apt and appropriate sanctions against the minister.