POLITICS LIVE: Constitutional Court is seriously annoyed with Bathabile Dlamini
'The executive arm of government admits that it is not able to fulfill its constitutional and statutory obligations to provide for the social assistance of its people'
The Constitutional Court has called on Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini to file an affidavit by the end of this month explaining why she should not pay the legal costs of the social grants application. The application was brought by the Black Sash to clarify how social grants would be paid once the current contract expires at the end of March. The court ruled that it had no choice but to extend the contract with Cash Paymaster Services for 12 months while a new tender process unfolded. Dlamini was not a respondent in her personal capacity, but the court had strong words for her failure to sort out the social grants mess in time. Reading the judgment, Justice Johann Froneman said: "There was no legitimate reason for the court not to accept the assurances of an organ of state - Sassa - under the guidance of the responsible minister that it would be able to fulfill an executive and administrative function allotted to it in terms of the constitution. "There was no suggestio...
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