A Parliamentary Committee has lashed out at the Department of Social Development and the South African Social Security Agency, SASSA, after their officials failed to show up for a Committee hearing on Wednesday
The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Social Development, Rosemary Capa, said she noted the apology from Social Development Minister, Bathabile Dlamini, but said she was “concerned by the absence of the Deputy Minister, Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, who has not attended one Committee meeting this year.”
“Furthermore, the Committee strongly condemned Sassa’s gross negligence in failing to appear before the Committee to provide an update on the migration of the social grant scheme, which is to be handed over from Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) to the South African Post Office (Sapo),” Capa said in a statement.
She said that a letter received from the Acting Sassa CEO, Pearl Bhengu, stated that no substantial progress has been made since the last meeting with the Committee and requested a postponement until November 2017.
“The Committee expressed its unhappiness on this score, saying it has a constitutional mandate to perform oversight and will not be dictated to on how this should be done,” Capa said.
She said the Committee agreed that the next step will be to summon Sassa, the ministry and the department to account for the delays in appointing the South African Post Office to take over the payment of social grants.
Capa said that the failure of SASSA to appear at the meeting undermined the work of the Committee and “is unacceptable.”
