I still maintain that I am not at fault: Sassa chief

Sassa chief executive Thokozani Magwaza said on Thursday that he cannot be blamed for the agency’s undertaking in May last year that it would meet the April 2017 deadline to do away with Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) and administer social grants to beneficiaries.

"I still maintain that I am not at fault. If I came [at Sassa] on the 1st of November there is no way that I would have known about something that happened on the 16th of May‚" he said.

Magwaza was speaking after the Constitutional Court on Thursday directed that an inquiry be set up to investigate Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini's role and responsibilities pertaining to social grants.

The court had‚ in 2014‚ declared that the 2012 contract between Sassa and CPS for the payment of grants was invalid.

However‚ the court extended the invalid contract to give Sassa time to open a new tender process for social grant payments.

"We accept the court ruling. We are going to abide with what we have been directed to do. We are going to comply‚" Magwaza said about the judgment.

He said Sassa would consult its legal team and "they will guide us as to what is supposed to happen".

Magwaza said his team was busy working on a system that would ensure the crisis over social grants did not happen again.

"We are busy on it 24 hours a day."

Nomonde Nyembe‚ who represented Black Sash‚ said the parties would have to agree to a process to determine facts in dispute in the matter.

"We believe if there has been some default there has to be consequences for that action."

Black Sash said the court ruling was a "fair decision".

The court found that it could not make an "adverse" order against the minister on the basis of allegations that had not been “tested”. Dlamini had to show cause why she should not be personally liable for the social grants crisis and why she should not be made to pay the costs of the court application.

The court ordered that all parties involved in the matter appoint an individual to head an investigation into Dlamini's role and responsibilities.

They are to report back to court within 14 days‚ the order says.

The Black Sash Trust approached the court in March after the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) acknowledged it would not be able to pay millions of grants from April 1‚ despite promising the court in November 2015 it would do so.

-TimesLIVE