ANALYSIS: Sassa bungle highlights Zuma’s and the ANC’s failures
Once the ‘crowning glory’ of ANC policies, the party’s mishandling of the social grants payment debacle could cost it heavily in the 2019 elections
The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa), one of the ANC’s signature programmes — a welfare system for the poorest third of SA’s people — is in chaos. The monthly stipends are distributed to more than 17-million people by Net1’s Cash Paymaster Services (CPS), whose contract is due to expire on March 31, with a new one being concluded against the advice of the Treasury and in possible violation of a court order. Amid the turmoil, the head of the social welfare department has quit, Sassa’s CEO went on sick leave, and the Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini has faced calls to resign. Any halt to the more than R140bn-a-year programme, which has underpinned support for the ANC since it won power in 1994, may cost the party heavily in elections scheduled for 2019, and spark protests in poor communities where many households have no other income. The debacle is the latest in a series of missteps by President Jacob Zuma’s administration that have curbed growth, dented inve...
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