IT READS like a head-teacher’s instructions to a failing pupil to come back every few months, homework in hand, to prove that he has done better. Sadly it is a judgment by South Africa’s Constitutional Court, the country’s highest, against a government that the judges no longer trust to uphold the laws and constitution.
The ruling, handed down by an exasperated court on March 17th, was something of a U-turn. Three years earlier it had found that the government had not run a fair tender process when, in 2012, it gave a contract to a private company to manage the payment of pensions and social grants. At the time the court did not look into whether the contract to Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) was corruptly awarded, but it did note that “deviations from fair process may themselves all too often be symptoms of corruption or malfeasance.”
Although in 2014 the court declared the contract with CPS invalid, it did not simply tear it up, because of its concern for the well-being of some 17m people, or nearly one in three South Africans, who get monthly payments from the state. These include not just the old but also mothers of young children, and people with...Continue reading
from Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2n25sCR
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment