Durban — The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) has clarified that not all 74 000 deceased recipients were ghost accounts.
This follows a story aired by the SABC in which it was stated that more than 74 000 deceased recipients were wrongly paid by Sassa. This was after a parliamentary question by Social Development Minister Lindiwe Sisulu.
“As much as we are aware of some corrupt activities taking place, which our fraud and compliance unit is dealing with on a daily basis, as Sassa, we can confirm that the majority of this is not due to corruption but rather due to the timing of reporting of death by the responsible family members versus the date on which Sassa extracts payments for the affected clients,” Sassa spokesperson Paseka Letsatsi said.
Letsatsi said that as part of the normal social grant payment extraction process, Sassa extracted payment beneficiary details and compared the details with the Department of Home Affairs monthly.
“The key purpose is to test if the beneficiaries are still alive … This process takes place just around the 22nd/23rd of every month.
“In an instance where the client is found to be deceased, such a record is deactivated on the Sassa system prior to extraction of payment – no money is generated for such clients. This interface process with the Department of Home Affairs, as explained, is automated and it is executed on a monthly basis without exceptions.”
Letsatsi said that when a client died in their residence, Sassa would know that only if a family member had reported the death to it or to the Department of Home Affairs.
“In instances where death is reported late at Sassa or the Department of Home Affairs, such eventuality can result in some payment being prematurely released. There are instances where death is reported after a number of days from the actual date on which death would have occurred.
“This late reporting of death to the Department of Home Affairs or to Sassa results in exceptions for monies released prematurely. Unfortunately, this element of late reporting of death, neither Sassa nor the Department of Home Affairs has any control over.”
Letsatsi said Sassa reviewed a beneficiary’s personal details from time to time to ascertain if the beneficiary’s circumstances remained the same.
The review process was conducted through a physical contact arrangement (face-to-face) between Sassa staff and the affected beneficiaries, and not virtually. If a client was dead, such a client will not be able to present themselves for a review process, Letsatsi said.
He said the 74 000 deceased beneficiaries were those who were reported to have died in the past three years. That meant that of the 18 million clients paid monthly by Sassa, there was was an average of 2 055 clients who had died monthly in the past three years and whose circumstances could have been one of the few reasons mentioned that was out of Sassa’s control.
“The above therefore implies that the number of 2 055 clients represents 0.01% of the total population paid by Sassa on a monthly basis,” Letsatsi said.
“Sassa’s cut-off payment date is the 22nd of every month and that will determine the payment of the deceased, depending on the home affairs registration. Sassa is presently working tirelessly with the Department of Home Affairs to ensure that the systems are connected. This is to ensure that we curb corruption. Sassa has, in the past, worked closely with the Hawks and other law enforcement agencies to curb corruption.
“We will continue to work with law enforcement agencies for the betterment of our organisation.”
Letsatsi said Sassa had implemented a fraud-prevention strategy, aligned to the National Anti-Corruption Strategy, and that it conducted fraud awareness campaigns regularly to increase awareness.
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