South Africa

South Africa

Bathabile Dlamini spits Twitter fire after pension block

Bathabile Dlamini spits Twitter fire after pension block
Former MP Bathabile Dlamini, 7 February 2019. The original photo has been altered. (Photo: Leila Dougan)

Former Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini has issued a fiery broadside after her pension is blocked for wasteful and fruitless security expenditure.

A multimillion-rand irregular and wasteful security contract is at the centre of a growing row between ANC Women’s League president Bathabile Dlamini, the Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu and Sassa CEO Busisiwe “Totsie” Memela.

The Sunday Times reported that Dlamini’s pension has been blocked as part of a civil claim by Sassa for a refund of R4-million for a security contract to cover security protection for Dlamini and spokesperson Lumka Oliphant.   

Oliphant has written to Zulu asking for clarity about her pension and insists that the minister step in to confirm that the Department approved the security in 2013 and that her government pension has not been attached. Oliphant is chief director of communications in the department.

Dlamini’s pension has been blocked and she is angry. On Monday, 1 March, she issued a Twitter fusillade.  “Should anything happen to me, you people who go round making noise that you were mentored, meanwhile you are cruel, selling out. Tell then where my pension is. I want it cause I can’t trade bloody diamonds. What are you doing? Here is a job looking at you,” she tweeted first.  Then, she followed up: “It can’t be that women are continuously used to perform the cruel job of men. They should keep their cruelty amongst themselves, not use women.” 

Dlamini did not respond to a Daily Maverick request for comment, but it’s clear her anger is targeted either at Zulu or Memela. Memela inherited a tough terrain at Sassa, the grant payer.  Numerous court judgments effectively put Sassa under court curatorship in the course of extricating itself from the Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) contract and the pension block is part of her clean-up.

Last year, Sassa brought a civil claim for the refund against former Sassa CEO Virginia Petersen who signed off on the private security contract for Dlamini and Oliphant. Dlamini and Oliphant are co-respondents to the claim as contract beneficiaries.

The security was arranged after Dlamini and Oliphant reported they had received threats related to the rescue of drug mules from Brazil and the renewal of the grant payment tender where Absa and CPS competed against each other for the multi-billion-rand contract.  The Auditor-General classified the security contract as a wasteful and fruitless expenditure.  Security must be provided by the SA Police Service (SAPS) after a threat assessment. Petersen signed off on private security from Vuco Security Solutions.

Then police commissioner Riah Phiyega was informed by then Social Development director-general Coceko Pakade of the threats. In 2014, a police general recommended “necessary security measures” be extended to Oliphant.  On this basis, the security was approved by Sassa, an entity overseen by the Department of Social Development. 

Dlamini is without a Cabinet role but is arguably more politically powerful than she was before. The ANC Women’s League is growing and its branches are recognised as the most stable and organised of all the governing party’s related structures. 

The Women’s League gets a significant percentage of votes at the party’s national general council and at its elective conferences. 

The action against Dlamini is part of the rubric of state reform (the refund of irregular state contracts) but it is risky for President Cyril Ramaphosa who needs the ANC Women’s League in his corner as he starts a fraught political year.  

The Women’s League is also soon going to visit former president Jacob Zuma as part of various solidarity pilgrimages to his Nkandla home ahead of his arms deal court case and amidst his stand-up fight with the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture. DM

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  • Coen Gous says:

    I was hoping this pathetic women will just disappear from the public eye after she was fired as a Minister. Now it seems as if she is more of the threat than ever before. Women in general are being insulted by this ANC Woman’s League, with Dlamini the worse of the lot.

  • Rodney Weidemann says:

    Cyril will never have the ANCWL in his corner while she is in charge – she’s been opening bat for JZ783 for at least 14 years. Don’t forget how the leader of the WOMEN’s League vilified and cursed the young woman who had the temerity to accuse ‘The Spear’ of rape…!!!

  • Sergio CPT says:

    A typical zuma/magashule poodle – deceitful, self-serving, vengeful, inept, corrupt to the core, brain-dead and bereft of any morals, integrity, decency and ethics, and like a putrid smell that just won’t go away. SA needs deliverance from this evil mob!

  • Con Tester says:

    Self-righteous narcissist windbags don’t like it when their ineptitudes and/or misconduct are publicly exposed and they are penalised.

    Someone should write a song called “Denial of de Cadres.” It would be an instant nationwide #1 hit and remain a favourite crowd-pleaser for many years to come.

  • Nick Miller says:

    I am not social media savvy and assume her Twitter messages are written in a Twitter code, since to me they are incomprehensible, incoherent and meaningless!
    Can any one enlighten me?

  • Aysha Salie Salie says:

    The level of shameless dishonesty boggles the mind. The people of South Africa need to find a way to neutralise the numerous brainless, immoral parasites that have too much political power and control the destiny of the country.

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