Marion Edmunds
PENSION fraud is costing South Africa at least R1-billion a year, and only direct government control of the welfare system can stop it, a government task team says.
The task team – the Committee For Restructuring of Social Security, led by Reverend Frank Chikane – says the current province-based system of handing out pensions and grants is in “crisis”.
The Cabinet has already been briefed on the team’s 94-page report, and the recommendations will be phased in from next year.
The report says that about R1-billion of the R14,3-billion allocated each year for the needy is lost to corruption or incompetence as the provinces struggle to control their welfare officials.
The task team found that in the Western Cape alone, master files identifying beneficiaries of payouts were woefully inaccurate.
Nearly half the master files for the House of Representatives, 81% of the House of Assembly files and 89% of the Cape Provincial Administration contained invalid South African identity numbers. Other provinces’ records were probably even worse, the team says.
The team says the only solution is for the national Welfare Department to intervene and develop a new delivery system that would apply to all
“The primary advantage to the pensioner population is that they know that wherever they live in South Africa they will get exactly the same treatment,” task team member Alan Thompson says.
“A national system will be easier to co- ordinate, reducing the potential for cross province multiplier claims and fraud … If there is one national set of instructions there can be no question of `we don’t do it that way here’.”
No price-tag is put to the plan, but it could cost millions of rands to put such a system in place and hire personnel to run it.
There could also be constitutional difficulties in forcing provinces to fall into line behind the national minister, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi.
The team also says that punishment of corrupt officials is ineffective.
“Whenever a member of staff is suspected of fraud or corruption, the matter is reported to the SAPS,” the report says.
“The task of investigating and prosecuting the suspect is left to the SAPS . The investigation and prosecuting process takes years to complete and is frequently inconclusive when the suspect is either not charged or acquitted for lack of evidence.”
A key obstacle to weeding out rogue officials is the complexity of departmental disciplinary rules. There is also little communication between provincial departments, the report adds, and the police and the government blame each other when corrupt officials slip through the net.