Cape Town - The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) has referred almost 500 cases for criminal investigations of people, including officials, alleged to have defrauded the social grant system over the past 10 years.
DA MP Bridget Masango wrote to Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu enquiring about the criminal complaints her department and Sassa lodged against persons who benefited unduly from receiving social grants, and officials who helped such persons.
Masango also asked about the number of the charges that were successfully prosecuted.
In her response, Zulu said Sassa has referred 489 cases for criminal investigations and possible prosecution between 2012/2013 and 2021/2022 financial years.
“These cases involved 1 174 individuals, of which 761 were officials,” she said.
Zulu said 489 cases were referred to law enforcement agencies and 31 were successfully prosecuted.
She said Sassa has an approved fraud prevention strategy that was aligned to the national anti-corruption strategy.
“Fraud awareness campaigns are conducted on a quarterly basis as per the operational plan. The emphasis of the strategy is on fraud prevention through fraud awareness capabilities.”
Zulu said Sassa had paid R350 social relief of distress (SRD) grants to 4 102 refugees and 15 258 asylum seekers since the introduction of the grant.
Sassa has paid out a total of R34 456 800 to refuges and R63 113 750 to asylum seekers.
Meanwhile, the Independent Tribunal for Social Assistance Appeals received a total of 2 591 appeals that are related to the decisions of Sassa on social assistance applications to various grant types as at September.
“A total of 1 014 appeals have been finalised and 1 577 are currently in the adjudication process. The total outstanding is still within the 90 days period as the related appeals were all received during August and September 2022.”
The minister said the the Independent Tribunal received a total of 3 595 147 appeals in respect of the current iteration of the R350 grant for the period of April 2022 to July 2022.
“The Independent Tribunal has adjudicated all appeals received against the Covid-19 SRD applications declined by Sassa for the month of June 2022.
“The rest of the appeals that are outstanding are still within the 90-days period which will expire during the relevant months,” she said.
According to Zulu, of the 3.5 million appeals received, only 516 442 were adjudicated and 3 078 705 were outstanding in June.
“The adjudication processes relating to April – May 2022 are under way.”
Cape Times