Bathabile Dlamini and Pearl Bhengu must be held personally liable for SASSA waste
22 May 2018
The Democratic Alliance will write to the new Minister of Social Development, Susan Shabangu, to request that her Department take urgent action to hold her predecessor, Bathabile Dlamini, and former South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) CEO, Pearl Bhengu, personally liable for gross irregular expenditure at the Department during their tenure, including the R16 million spent on dubious “education meetings”.
In a presentation to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) in Parliament today, SASSA revealed Bhengu signed off R16 million in December 2017 for “education meetings” in Kwazulu-Natal without following standard procurement procedures.
Today, Bhengu was the only Provincial manager absent, conveniently “unwell”.
It is alleged that Bhengu, within a day of receiving the request, approved inter alia: