Bathabile Dlamini lambasted by opposition MPs over SASSA crisis
Opposition parties have reiterated their calls in Parliament this afternoon for Social Development Minister, Bathabile Dlamini to be shown the door.
Agang SA's Andries Tlouamma offered to fire Dlamini himself if the ANC is not up to the task.
"Minister Dlamini is the worst minister ever produced by the ruling ANC. This is a severe case of self-delusion when a minister decides to endanger the health and life of vulnerable people in our society; deliberately not abide to the Constitutional Court directives, simply provide arguments to cater only designed to cater to one sense of the absurd," he said.
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Dlamini told MPs today there's no crisis with regards to the payment of social grants. She instead accused opposition parties of using the social grants issue to further their own political agenda.
"The opposition's claims that there is a crisis at SASSA - is therefore nothing more than a self-serving propaganda, political grandstanding of the highest order. They must stop with their scare campaign, which has caused public panic and anxiety," she said.
The IFP's Liezl Van Der Merwe says the minister just doesn't get it.
"No one from this side of the house is manufacturing a crisis. You are the crisis, and you created this crisis. The only thing we need to still figure out is to what end you manufactured this crisis, and whose interests you're serving? And this thing of blaming opposition parties in the media for your woes - it's really getting old - think of something else," she said.
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UDM leader, Bantu Holomisa says the handling of the social grants crisis is indicative of an irreparably corrupt government.
He says under normal circumstances, there would have been a commission of inquiry appointed to urgently look into the matter.
"Knowing who has to effect such an inquiry, we may as well forget about it. Hence all hope is pinned on the Constitutional Court. The UDM hopes the ConCourt will issue a judgement that will restore the rule of law - instead of a rule by law, wherein the powers of the accounting officers will be respected and the political interference by executive authorities will be reversed and made a thing of the past," he said.