South Africa’s official opposition Democratic Alliance has released a list of social-grant fraudsters in the public service — although Minister of Social Development Zola Skweyiya has asked that the information supplied to it remain confidential.
The names of over 1 728 public servants were provided by the minister to the DA, which MP Mike Waters released on Thursday.
Skweyiya reported earlier this year that more than 35 000 cases of allegations of social-grant fraud committed by members of the public had been reported. Last year more than 12 000 public servants were found to be receiving social grants for which they were allegedly not eligible.
Skweyiya said previously that more than 2 120 officials signed acknowledgements of debt and investigations against the others are continuing and cases are pending in courts.
Meanwhile, Waters said in a statement that: ”This government has developed a tendency to hide from the public important information about the state of our country. We find it strange and somewhat offensive that the minister would ask the DA to be complicit in this kind of behaviour.
”The DA would obviously respect the confidentiality of any information that legitimately puts at risk our country’s national security, but information concerning corruption, which is precisely what is at issue here, should never be swept under the carpet.
”We understand that the individuals named in the minister’s reply were caught stealing and agreed to sign admissions of guilt. It is perhaps appropriate, therefore, that they have not have been charged criminally, but the state’s generosity should not extend to protecting their anonymity.
”The public in general, and taxpayers and the poor in particular, have a right to know who has been stealing their money. For these reasons we are now making the minister’s full reply public.”
Skweyiya said that it was recommended that Parliament ”applies discretion in the formulation and publication of this question”.
”The requested information was compiled by the Special Investigative Unit using additional available data to filter the required information. The content of the reply is comprehensive and should be considered as confidential.”
The list provided did not say in which departments the officials fell. — I-Net Bridge