Unit to probe 5 million grants

09 March 2006

About five million social grants being paid out monthly may need to be probed for fraud, says special investigating unit head Willie Hofmeyr.

Cape Town - Up to half of the 10 million social grants being paid out monthly may need to be probed for fraud, said special investigating unit (SIU) head Willie Hofmeyr on Thursday.

"We probably need to do something between two and five million investigations if we want to clean up the system," he told reporters at parliament.

"One can safely say that billions (of rands) are involved."

The department of social development's own estimate was that about R1.5bn to R1.8bn was being paid out illegally every month.

This meant that probably about 6% of beneficiaries, or 600 000, needed to be removed from the social system, said Hofmeyr.

"To find the 600 000, you clearly need to look at a lot more."

The SIU, set up to probe fraud, corruption and maladministration in government departments, has identified 14 262 public servants in the past nine months who were receiving social grants unlawfully.

R50m a year drawn illegally

The grants had been cancelled and 571 prosecutions instituted since the probe started six months ago. There have been 333 convictions thus far.

The annual value of the irregular and unlawful pensions drawn by these public servants was about R50m, said Hofmeyr.

Of this, about R7.3m had been recovered to date.

The SIU's success in this regard translated into a prevention of future losses of about R377m.

This was calculated on the assumption that each of the public servants would have continued to draw their unlawful pensions for 10 more years.

The department was giving the SIU R128m to employ 200 investigators to continue the probe for the next three years.

Hofmeyr said the SIU estimated it had saved R146m, prevented R1.6bn in future losses, and recovered R8.9m by stopping fraudulent practices in government departments in the past nine months.

Unit getting financial backing

"We are getting to the stage where we make a real difference to corruption in our country," he said.

The government appreciated that the SIU was generating good value for money invested in it, which was clear from a rising budget and departmental contributions.

The unit's R23m budget from the government for 2002/'03 would grow to R76m by the 2008/'09 financial year.

Government departments have committed to investing R220m in the SIU in the next three years, from R500 000 three years ago.

Source: News 24

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