New system roots out grant fraud in the Eastern Cape

CAPE TOWN - Feb 23 2005 15:31

There has been a 76% increase over the past three years in the number of people receiving disability and care dependency grants in the Eastern Cape, according to the Budget Review tabled by Finance Minister Trevor Manuel at Parliament on Wednesday.

After it came to light a number of the recipients were accessing the grants fraudulently, the provincial government had developed a multifaceted approach to protect the integrity of the grant system, the document states.

This had resulted in significant savings during the 2004/05 financial year.

The approach involved a number of initiatives, including:

conducting a forensic audit of all disability and care dependency files to identify all ineligible recipients. and those whose status needed to be reviewed;

developing guidelines in conjunction with medical professionals to assist practitioners in assessing the degree of disability;

creating a registry of medical professionals authorised to conduct the assessments, and who were then provided with training on the use of the new guidelines;

reviewing the cases of approximately 80Â 000 temporary grant recipients who continued to receive payments beyond the period they were originally eligible; and,

commissioning a new management information system for social grants to enable them to closely monitor key programme indicators and identify and address problems at an early stage.

The success of these measures had prompted other provinces such as KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State, to replicate them in an attempt to improve their disability grant systems. - Sapa

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New system roots out grant fraud in the Eastern Cape

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