Zuma says it’s “impossible” to fire Dlamini – because the 1st of April hasn’t happened yet
President Jacob Zuma has come out in defence of embattled social development minister Bathabile Dlamini, saying it is an “impossible demand” for him to take action against her.
When queried as to how Dlamini was allowed to maintain her position as minister following the country’s grants crisis, Zuma said that his hands were tied, as the proposed date of 1 April had not yet come to pass, and Dlamini was yet to fail.
In response to DA leader Mmusi Maimane’s concern about the lack of action on the grants crisis, Zuma claimed that he would not allow South Africa to be a “funny democracy” where people were punished before they had committed wrongdoing.
“It is absolutely not correct that we have said that there is no problem. We have said that even now as I speak the treasury and social development are meeting in order to solve the problem.”
“You can’t say that people have not been paid (grants) as the date has not yet arrived. Only after the 1st can you ask me why have you not take action against this minister,” Zuma said.
“It is a premature debate – I am very clear.”
Zuma’s remarks fly in the face of remarks made by Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng this week, where he described the current grants crisis in the country a result of “absolute incompetence” on the part of Dlamini and the department of social development.
Mogoeng grilled Dlamini’s lawyers in proceedings, asking how it was possible for the minister and her department to reach a point where the Constitutional Court had to be pulled in to rule on a matter they were ordered to resolve in 2014.
Dlamini, the DSD and Sassa failed to have a plan in place to take over the payments of grants by 31 March as ordered by the Constitutional Court in 2014, after it entered into an illegal and invalid contract with Net1 CSP in 2012.
Government has assured that grants will be paid on 1 April, but time is running out to find a solution to the crisis.
President Zuma used similar reasoning to defend not taking action against communications minister Faith Muthambi, who was also found to have overstepped her office at the SABC.
Zuma said that Muthambi was taking the parliamentary report into the SABC on review, and thus it still had a pending outcome.
Loading ...