Police are probing fraud and theft charges against senior officials in the national Department of Health after it emerged that they might have misappropriated millions of rands meant to compensate mineworkers suffering from occupational diseases.
The department confirmed this week that health officials attached to the department’s Compensation Commissioner for Occupational Diseases in Johannesburg are being investigated.
The compensation fund was set up by the department as a central kitty to compensate mineworkers injured or disabled in the line of duty. It is funded largely by levies from the mining industry. Mineworkers receive compensation of between R20 000 and R80 000, depending on the extent of the injuries sustained.
Health department spokesperson Jo-Anne Collinge said the department would not divulge the names of the implicated officials as none have been formally charged.
She could not reveal the amount of money embezzled. Departmental sources, however, say corrupt officials drained the department of close to R4-million. Other officials working with external “agents” allegedly also sucked up funds from beneficiaries.
Collinge said four officials, including a deputy commissioner, have been hauled before an internal disciplinary inquiry. But, she said, the four are back at work as none of the charges against them were upheld. The charges included fraud, forgery and conspiracy to commit fraud and theft.
Collinge said the health department was hoping the police investigation would result in successful prosecutions and that witnesses would come forward with “incriminating evidence that is needed”.
“Anybody who steals from a fund set up for mineworkers who have been disabled during years of the most ardous work deserves to be hit with the full force of the law,” Collinge said.
The Compensation Commissioner for Occupational Diseases is a statutory body under the Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Act. Its main objective is to compensate mineworkers who contracted lung-related diseases in the workplace.
Dr Charles Mbekeni, assistant health adviser at the Chamber of Mines, this week said the industry was aware of fraud cases in the compensation office.
“We have on a number of occasions written to the Health Ministry raising concerns about the administrative process of the compensation system. The industry supports any initiative by the department to try to uncover any mismanagement of funds.”
Mbekeni said there was a need for the establishment of a uniform and equitable compensation system within the department. One of the key problems hampering the system was the use of “agents” by beneficiaries. The agents allegedly charge beneficiaries large amounts of money for filing their compensation applications to the department.
Collinge said the department was currently amending the Act “to ensure that agents who have, in some cases, shamelessly exploited claimants under cover of ‘assisting’ them will be more tightly controlled”.
The new amendments to the Act would introduce “a legal ceiling to the fee they [agents] may charge for their work”, Collinge said.
In a bid to curb fraud and exploitation of beneficiaries, Collinge said, the department would also no longer accepts affidavits that used to be an acceptable way to substantiate employment on a mine.
“The pity of this is that some genuine claimants who are unable to produce original documentation may now find it hard to claim because of the unscrupulous abuse of the system by others.”