Former Sassa CEO Thokozani Magwaza maintains that if the work packages, which were replaced by work streams, had been allowed to continue, they would have met the 1 April 2017 deadline to take over the payment of the social grants.
Magwaza is being cross-examined by Minister Bathabile Dlamini‘s lawyer Ishmael Semenya at the inquiry in Midrand, north of Johannesburg.
He was, however, forced to concede that at the time that Dlamini’s work streams were operating, there was no parallel process by Sassa. This contradicted Magwaza’s earlier affidavit to the Constitutional Court.
When Semenya asked Magwaza if the work streams were entirely useless or irrelevant, Magwaza responded by saying that they were pushing for the new contract.
“I wouldn’t put it so drastically and say that they were irrelevant, but at the time when they came to Sassa up until April 17 there’s nothing that they’d done to help us pay grants instead they were pushing for the new contract.
Semenya further quizzed Magwaza asking, “Wow, that’s pretty profound for a then CEO to say, so they were entirely useless?” Magwaza was at pains to respond saying, “They have not helped us for the 1st of April.”
