PARLIAMENT, March 16 (ANA) – President Jacob Zuma on Thursday denied that there is a welfare grant crisis, and ridiculed calls for him to fire Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini as a “funny” notion of how democracy works.
Responding to a question from opposition leader Mmusi Maimane in the National Assembly, Zuma said it was asking too much of him to expect that he dismiss a minister for an event that has not yet transpired.
“I thought the date that we are talking about has not arrived, the first of April. This is another kind of democracy that if you think a person is going to fail or make a mistake you must punish them, it is a funny democracy,” he said.
“Why punish before anything happened?” he asked, adding: “There is no crisis.”
Zuma was contradicting Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng who on Wednesday plainly termed the government’s lack of a system to pay grants to 17 million beneficiaries next month a crisis.
The Constitutional Court heard an application from rights groups to force the South African Social Security Agency to find a lawful means of fulfilling its obligation to pay grants.
Mogoeng said it was inconceivable that Dlamini had allowed the crisis to arise.
– African News Agency (ANA)
