By Noxolo Sibiya.
The Supreme Court of Appeal has ordered former minister Bathabile Dlamini to pay back more than R2 million to the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) for private security for her personal protection in 2013.
In the ruling on Thursday, Judge David Unterhulter declared unlawful the decision to procure close protection security services from Durban-based security company Vuco Security for the benefit of Dlamini and her then-spokesperson, Lumka Oliphant, setting the decision and agreement aside.
“The second respondent [Bathabile Olive Dlamini] is ordered to pay to the applicant the sum of R2 008 086, together with interest at the prescribed rate of interest from the date the applicant made its last payment to the fourth respondent until the date of payment,” he said.
The security services contract was approved by Sassa, an entity that Dlamini was in charge of while she served as minister of the Department of Social Development (DSD). At the time, Virginia Petersen was Sassa CEO.
Sassa paid a total of R3.499 million, of which R2 008 086 was in respect of protection services for Dlamini’s children, and R1 491 520 for Oliphant and her children.
According to court papers, Dlamini had claimed that she and Oliphant were threatened after Sassa terminated payments to bogus beneficiaries in 2012. She said her computer was stolen in August 2013 after robbers broke into her official residence.
In 2020, Sassa approached the court to review and set aside the decision to procure security services, in a bid recoup the money. The North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria last year ruled that Dlamini, Oliphant, and Petersen be held liable to repay Sassa the money.
They were then granted leave to appeal to the SCA.
The SCA disagreed with the high court order, in respect of Petersen and Oliphant, saying the minister had used her authority in the matter. It upheld their appeal, and they were no longer required to pay.
The court said while Oliphant benefited, the unlawful engagement was between Dlamini and Petersen and that the high court erred in its order against her.
Unterhulter said: Ms Dlamini’s position is different. She was the Minister responsible for the DSD… She used her position of authority over Dr Petersen to require her to take steps to cause Sassa to procure and pay for protection services for an official of the DSD, Ms Oliphant, Ms Oliphant’s children, and her own children. Ms Dlamini gives no satisfactory explanation as to why she acted in this way.
He said Petersen followed Dlamini’s orders.
“Dr Petersen’s affidavit shows that she bona fide thought that she enjoyed the competence to do what the Minister had directed. And to do so in circumstances in which there was a very real threat which had come about by reason of the work that Sassa and the DSD were doing together.”
However, providing protection for individuals who were not part of the agency was not in the remit of the Sassa Act.
Unterhalter said DSD officials were entitled to protection while doing their jobs, and it was ultimately the minister’s duty to ensure this was done.
“In the first place that should have been done by the SAPS [SA Police Service] . The former Minister did enjoy such protection from the SAPS VIP Protection service. It seems their service did not extend to her children,” he said.
“It is a distressing reflection upon the ineffectiveness of the SAPS that the police could not discharge their most basic function: to ensure thesafety of those who do essential work within departments of the state, and their family members. Faced with this fact, it may have been competent for the former Minister to decide that the DSD would procure and pay for the protection of Ms Oliphant, Ms Oliphant’s children, and her own children.”