The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) has clarified that not all 74 000 deceased recipients were ghost accounts.
This comes after Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu said at least a payment of R140m in Sassa grants had been “wrongly paid” to more than 70 000 beneficiaries who had died over the past three years.
She revealed this in a written reply to a Parliamentary question by the Democratic Alliance’s Jacques Smalle.
“As much as we are aware of some corrupt activities taking place, which our fraud and compliance unit is dealing with on a daily basis, as Sassa, we can confirm that the majority of this is not due to corruption but rather due to the timing of reporting of death by the responsible family members versus the date on which Sassa extracts payments for the affected clients,” Sassa spokesperson Paseka Letsatsi said.
According to Letsatsi, the 74 000 deceased beneficiaries as reported is actually a number of beneficiaries who were reported to have died in the past three years.
This means that of the 18 million clients paid monthly by Sassa, there’s an average of 2 055 clients who died monthly in the past three years whose circumstances could have been reporting the deceased late at Sassa or Home Affairs.
Letsatsi said every month, and they test if the beneficiaries are still alive or dead by comparing Sassa extracts payment beneficiary details with Home Affairs.
According to Lesatsi, this process takes place around the 22nd or 23rd of every month.
In the instance that the client is found to be deceased, she said such a record is deactivated on the Sassa system before the extraction of payment, and no money is generated for such clients.
However, the problem now comes when a family reports the death of a person late, causing money to be released prematurely.
“In instances where death is reported late at Sassa or Department of Home Affairs, such eventuality can result in some payment being prematurely released of which they have no control.
“There are instances where death is reported after several days from the actual date on which death would have occurred – this late reporting of death to the Department of Home Affairs or to Sassa results in exceptions for monies released prematurely,” Letsatsi said.
With Sassa corruption scandals on the rise, Letsatsi said the fund is working tirelessly with Home Affairs to ensure the systems are connected. This is to ensure that we stop corruption.
SASSA SAID IT CONDUCTS A REVIEW OF BENEFICIARY
In addition to these mechanisms, SASSA said it conducts a review of beneficiary personal details to ascertain if the beneficiary circumstances are still the same.
Currently, the agency said a review process is conducted through face-to-face interactions between SASSA staff and the affected beneficiaries.
“If a client is not alive, such a client will not be able to present themselves for a review process.”
According to SASSA, the number of 74 000 deceased beneficiaries as reported in the media, is the number of beneficiaries who were reported to have died in the past three years.
This means that of the 18 million clients paid monthly, there is an average of 2 055 clients that died every month in the past three years whose circumstances could have been one of the few reasons outlined, which are beyond SASSA’s control.
This includes the death reported late to the Department of Home Affairs or SASSA by family members, days after payment has been processed.
“Therefore, this implies that the number of 2 055 clients represents 0.01% of the total population paid by SASSA every month.”
SASSA said its cut-off payment date is the 22nd of every month and that it determines the payment of the deceased depending on the Home Affairs registration.
“SASSA is presently working tirelessly with the Department of Home Affairs to ensure that the systems are connected. This is to ensure that we curb corruption.”
In the past, the agency said it worked closely with the Hawks and other law enforcement agencies to curb corruption.
“We will continue to work with law enforcement agencies for the betterment of our organisation.” In addition, SASSA said a fraud-prevention strategy aligned with the National Anti-Corruption Strategy, has been implemented, while fraud awareness campaigns are conducted regularly to increase awareness.