Former social development minister Bathabile Dlamini’s feeble excuse for not paying her legal bill, as ordered by the Constitutional Court more than two years ago, reveals her flagrant disrespect for our country’s laws.
In 2018 she was ordered by the court to personally contribute 20% of the costs of a legal challenge against her department by Freedom under Law and the Back Sash. The NGOs went to court to resolve a social grant payment crisis that was largely caused by her staggering incompetence. It related to an unlawful and irregular contract awarded to Cash Paymaster Services to distribute 17 million social grants to 10 million people. It brought millions of SA’s most vulnerable to the verge of destitution, and was a textbook case study on how to run a state grant system into the ground.
The belligerent politician argues that because she has not received her pension, she cannot afford to pay the approximately R650,000 she was ordered to contribute.
Does that mean that payment orders made by courts are done on an “if you can afford it” basis? More of a suggestion or a request than an order? Apparently so, Dlamini would have us believe. Even when the order comes from the highest court in the land.
It seems she is not willing to lower her living standards to abide by the law. While her required contribution is significant, she will have amassed a decent salary as a cabinet minister, and also received a loss-of-office gratuity payment when she left. Yet she has resorted to ducking and diving the sheriff.
Her claims that she does not know why her pension is being withheld should also be treated with a healthy dose of sceptism. Yesterday the office of the solicitor general said the reasons were “well known” by the former minister and SA Social Security Agency (Sassa).
Their heels are firmly dug in, and it will take a tsunami to dislodge them.
Yet in the management style she became notorious for while minister, Dlamini has folded her arms and pouted like a spoilt, stubborn child refusing to eat her vegetables.
It’s a strategy we have recently seen adopted by her close ally, former president Jacob Zuma, in his mulish refusal to accede to a Constitutional Court order to testify before the state capture inquiry.
Their heels are firmly dug in, and it will take a tsunami to dislodge them.
And in a bid to add impetus to their agenda, supporters of the RET faction have loosely painted the judiciary as untrustworthy — potentially corrupt and riddled with political agendas.
But as distasteful as Dlamini and Zuma’s behaviour is to law-abiding citizens, they are not the first and will not be last to test our country’s authorities. Powerful people with dubious agendas will always try to bend the rules to wriggle out of accountability.
The real villains of the story are those who let them get away with it.
This is not the time for halfhearted visits from the sheriff. If Dlamini continues to refuse to pay, she must be held in contempt of court, and her properties must be attached. Or she must go to jail.
As long as politicians are allowed to duck accountability, SA will not shake off its dismal track record of shoddy, incompetent service delivery.
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