While minister Bathabile Dlamini claimed she only became aware the SA Social Security Agency (SASSA) would not be able to pay social grants last October, it appears she was well informed of the agency's issues with regards to taking over payments some two years ago.
SASSA CEO Thokozani Magwaza submitted his affidavit to the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) on Friday afternoon, in which he told the court the minister knew about the agency's inability to take on payment of social grants in July 2015.
Magwaza's decision to file his own affidavit is aimed at setting the record straight and giving his side of the story following claims he and agency officials were to blame for the social grants panic.
In an affidavit filed by Dlamini, in which she was required to motivate why she should not be held personally liable for the social grants payment crisis, she shifted blame to Magwaza and SASSA.
The SASSA CEO fired back at these claims in his own affidavit to the highest court in the land.
Business Day reports Magwaza told the ConCourt that Dlamini had "derailed" SASSA's plans to take over the grant payments.
According to the newspaper, Dlamini wrote to then SASSA CEO Virginia Petersen in 2015, informing her of her decision to appoint work-streams that would report directly to the minister so she could "retain direct control of the implementation process".
"Since July 2015, the minister understood the issues, was in control of the process and knew or ought to have known of all developments in this important process and matter," Magwaza says.
Meanwhile, there are other reports that former department DG Zane Dangor will also file his affidavit to the ConCourt today.
SASSA and the social development department's woes began when the agency failed to select a suitable payments distributor ahead of the expiration of the current invalid contract with Cash Paymaster Services (CPS).
The department and its agency decided payments would be moved in-house; however, as it previously admitted, it realised it would not be able to manage the mammoth task of paying social grants to 17 million South Africans.
Last month, the ConCourt permitted the extension of the invalid social grants payments contract with CPS for another 12 months.
The extension was to avert a social payments disaster and ensure millions of beneficiaries received payments.
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