Donwald Pressly
Foreigners have found ways of robbing the state of millions of rands in social welfare grants to which they are not entitled, including old age pensions meant for the poor.
This emerges from Auditor General Shauket Fakie’s general report on government spending up to March 31 2001, presented to the public accounts committee.
Altogether R28,6-million was “overpaid” ? to use the parlance of the report ? but a staggering R9,3-million of this was paid to 499 citizens of foreign countries living in South Africa.
The report said the beneficiaries “should be cancelled with immediate effect and overpayments recovered where possible”.
Pensioners now receive R620 a month, but grants are also provided to poor people looking after children and for those suffering from disability. A tough means test has to be passed to draw the grants.
Altogether 337 dead people were paid R660 000. A breakdown of how long the people had been dead was not given. But the report does say that all beneficiaries still registered with an old reference book starting with 0000 ? indicating they were born after 1900 ? “should be identified and correctly registered or their registration cancelled with immediate effect”.
Some public servants also had their fingers in the cookie jar. Altogether 621 people were found to be receiving a salary according to Persal ? the state salary system for public servants ? and also to be on a grant “where the means test was not taken into consideration”.
Fakie has proposed that a comparison between the data on Socpen ? the social pensioners’ salary system ? and Persal should be done on a regular basis “and any duplications followed up immediately”.
Altogether 849 people were found to be receiving pensions from the state ? indicating that they were former public servants ? as well as social grants, costing the state R3,1-million.
A sizeable number of beneficiaries ? 592 ? were found to be receiving the grant although they were younger than the qualifying age of 60. They had been paid R11,3-million by the time they were discovered.
Altogether 3 179 beneficiaries of the 6 233 examined were being “overpaid” by the time they were discovered.
? During the current parliamentary session a Social Grants Appropriation Bill ? which provides back pay totalling R2-billion in social grant payments to the poor ? is expected to be passed.
The legislation provides back pay to people who applied for grants between April 1998 and December 2001 but who received their first payments much later.