Mkhwebane: Dlamini did not deliberately mislead parliament
Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane has found that former Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini did not deliberately mislead parliament over the social grants debacle.
The complaint was laid by Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Bridget Masango.
She felt Dlamini deliberately misled parliament when she said that the South African Social Security Agency would be “taking over the management and control of the payment process that was performed by a third party (CPS) from April 2017”.
The public protector's report found the allegation that Dlamini knew as far back as 2015 that SASSA would not be able to pay out grants could not be substantiated.
"In the Black Sash Trust vs the Minister of Social Development and others, Froneman J held in his judgment that since April 2016, the responsible functionaries of SASSA have been aware that it could not comply with the undertaking to the Constitutional Court, that it would be able to pay social grants from 1 April 2017, however confirmed that former Minister Dlamini only became aware of SASSA's inability to make such payments in October 2016.
"We found that allegations that the former Minister of Social Development, deliberately or inadvertently misled the National Assembly when she delivered her budget vote speech, could not be substantiated," said Mkhwebane.
Mkhwebane has not made a 'finding' on whether or not Dlamini violated the Executive Ethics Code.