It is the ANC that will be most directly affected if social grants are not paid on April 1. Aside from being a progressive policy intervention directed at the most vulnerable in society, social grants are a key pillar of the governing party’s election campaigns. Already, say party insiders, opposition parties are warning communities they will not receive grants come April 1 because the money had been "stolen" by the ANC. But the handling of the matter is a gilded gift for the opposition, so it is unnerving — yet not surprising — that there has been an ominous silence from Luthuli House as the Department of Social Development and South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) lurched from scandal to crisis.The court has asked whether Sassa has entered into an agreement with CPS and demands full details of the agreement. It wants to know when Sassa realised it would not be able to take over the grants payments, and why it failed to inform the court. Dlamini is also the president of the ...

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