Presidency 'unaware' of Hulley's secret grants meetings

The Presidency claims to be unaware of secret meetings that President Jacob Zuma's lawyer Michael Hulley had with SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) officials on the payment of social grants, notes Legalbrief. Yet, according to the Sunday Times, President Jacob Zuma’s special adviser played a key role in ensuring that Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) would keep the lucrative contract to deliver more than 17m social grants to recipients. It says his intervention coincided with Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini flatly rejecting any payment option that did not involve CPS, raising questions about why the Minister was so intent on retaining the company. Secret meetings between top Sassa managers and Michael Hulley, Zuma’s special adviser, have raised questions about the Presidency’s role in the fiasco, suggests the Sunday Times. But in a brief statement yesterday, it said: ‘The Presidency is not aware of the said meetings.’ Hulley has been named as the person who advised Dlamini to go against Advocate Wim Trengove SC and three other independent legal opinions that recommended that she should let the Constitutional Court decide the fate of the CPS contract. Sassa has to respond to the Constitutional Court by today on who was responsible for deciding it would not be able to pay grants itself and whether a deal had been concluded with CPS. Arguments on the issue will be heard on Wednesday.