Cape Town - While number the number of cases of loan sharks keeping Sassa beneficiaries’ cards as collateral in the province has gone down, the agency says this remains a challenge in the poor communities.
The Sassa provincial office was briefing the standing committee on social development on Tuesday on its plans to deal with loan sharks who were keeping Sassa beneficiary cards.
Sassa revealed that from 2012 to date, it had received 106 reported cases and 109 people were arrested. An amount of R313 921 with 3 308 cards (including banks) were confiscated.
Provincial Sassa Fraud Unit manager Marlon Joubert said these arrested parties were not only loan sharks or illegal money lenders but were also registered financial services providers, spaza shops and shebeen owners.
He said they also forced the beneficiaries to provide their IDs and PINs. Joubert said this was a serious issue as the numbers were only a small percentage of what was happening on the ground.
“A beneficiary must without limitation or restriction receive the full amount of a grant to which he or she is entitled before any other person may exercise any right or enforce any claim in respect of that amount,” he said.
Joubert said following engagements with the provincial police commissioner’s office, all Sassa-related cases were now being prioritised for investigation with Sassa’s assistance.
He said Sassa was working closely with law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders to curb this scourge.
He said Sassa was continuously sensitising beneficiaries to not use the agency’s card as security for loans with money lenders/loan sharks and that the misuse of the social grant was a serious offence.
DA provincial spokesperson on social development, Dan Plato, called on Sassa to increase its efforts to educate grant beneficiaries on the pitfalls associated with predatory financial service providers and loan sharks.
“More can be done to combat the prevalence of beneficiaries being forced to use their Sassa cards as collateral by predatory financial service providers. This practice is not only illegal but results in grant money lining the pockets of loan sharks,” he said.