While Sassa is investigating corruption in relation to the more than 74 000 deceased recipients who were still being paid their grants, Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu says many cases were the result of relatives taking a long time to declare the death of their loved ones.
It was an investigation by the SABC news channel that shed light on the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) grants being paid to ghost accounts.
“As much as we are aware of some corrupt activities taking place which our fraud and compliance unit is dealing with daily, as Sassa we can confirm that the majority of this is not due to corruption,” said Ms Zulu.
“But rather the timing of reporting of death by the responsible family members and the date on which Sassa extracts payments for the affected clients.”
As part of the normal social grant payment extraction process, Sassa said it extracts payment beneficiary details and compares them with the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) monthly. The key purpose is to test if the beneficiaries are still alive or deceased. This process takes place just around the 22nd or 23rd of every month, said the minister.
“In an instance that the client is found to be deceased, such a record is deactivated on the Sassa system before extraction of payment – no money is generated for such clients,” said Ms Zulu. “This interface process with the DHA as explained is automated and it is executed every month without exceptions.”
However, when a client dies somewhere other than their listed area of residence, Sassa gets to know about a recipient’s death is when family members report such a death to Sassa or DHA, the minister added.
In instances where death is reported late to Sassa or DHA, such eventuality can result in some payment being prematurely released. There are instances where death is reported after a number of days from the actual date on which death would have occurred, the minister explained.
“The late reporting of death to home affairs or Sassa results in exceptions for monies released prematurely. Unfortunately, this element of late reporting of death, neither Sassa nor DHA has any control over it,” said Ms Zulu.
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, the minister said.
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,” Ms Zulu said.
“This includes the death reported late to the DHA 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 working with the DHA to ensure that the systems are connected and to curb corruption, said Minister Zulu. In the past, the agency said it worked closely with the Hawks and other law enforcement agencies to curb corruption. They added that they will continue to work with law enforcement agencies for the betterment of the 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.
