MPs Demand Probe Into “Entire Social Grant Payment System”

The chair of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Social Services, Bridget Masango, says the committee has urged the Department of Social Development to investigate the entire grant payment system.

• The Portfolio Committee on Social Services has called for an investigation into the entire grant payment system to tackle fraud.
• This follows the current probe into fraud over the R370-a-month Social Relief of Distress Grant(SRD).
• Committee chair Bridget Masango says any officials found guilty of fraud or misconduct relating to the SRD grant investigation, will be held accountable.

Officials found guilty of fraud or misconduct related to SASSA’s grant payment system must be brought to book, Bridget Masango, who is chair of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Social Development, said on Thursday.

Speaking at a briefing in Cape Town on Thursday, Masango said the committee would call for a full investigation of the entire grants payment system.

This follows a commitment by the department and minister to investigate allegations of fraud within the R370-a-month Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant last year. Two Stellenbosch University students Joel Cedras and Veer Gosai, discovered vulnerabilities in the payment system run by the SA Social Security Agency (SASSA) payment system. They found that fraudulent SRD applications were being made using ID numbers of individuals who had recently turned 18.

Their findings were presented to MPs, prompting Minister Nokuzola Tolashe to commit to investigating the fraud. But, when these findings were presented to MPs in Parliament in November, it was clear the investigation –which cost the state about R280,000 — failed to answer critical questions about the payment systems shortfalls.

On Thursday Masango said the department’s investigation must be extended beyond the SRD grant system.

She said the DSD had been given more time to conduct a thorough investigation into the SRD fraud allegations. No deadline has been set for a final report, Masango said, but the committee would discuss the matter at its first sitting in February.

The committee will also work with the Department of Home Affairs, since ID numbers are required for grant applications, Masango said.

She stressed that any officials found guilty of fraud or misconduct relating to the SRD grant investigation, will be held accountable. “The investigation revealed that there are officials implicated in this. They will have to be brought to book.

Long queues and staffing shortages at SASSA

On the issue of long queues at SASSA branches, Masango said MPs visiting SASSA branches had found the queue management system to be ineffective.

She also raised concerns about SASSA’s call centre. She said last year committee members phoned 212 SASSA offices nationwide, but staff at only one of the offices answered the phone with useful information, while staff at others said “they didn’t know what we were talking about”.

She said SASSA’s online application system “didn’t work most of the time because of downtime or loadshedding”.

She said that many teller posts at SASSA branches are vacant, with some branches operating with limited resources. “People walk in there and only two cubicles are open. But those two cubicles only use one computer. So effectively only one cubicle is working,” she said.

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