Government recoups over R1bn on grants

THE DEPARTMENT of Social Development recouped more than R1 billion from unspent social and disability grants as a result of its mechanism to uncover fraudulent grants and also due to a revised process of assessing disabilities. This was revealed in the Treasury’s 2016 mediumterm budget policy statement tabled by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in Parliament yesterday.

The Treasury said a number of children were taken off social grants in June following investigations prompted by the auditor-general to probe “ghost” grants. As a result, it said the uptake of the child support grant had declined by more than expected. “R1.005bn in unspent funds has been declared from social grants as a result of slow spending on the child support grant and the disability grant.

“This is mainly due to a number of children being taken off the system as a result of investigations following queries from the auditor-general, leading to a lower-than-anticipated number of beneficiaries for the child support grant. The slow spending on the disability grant is mainly due to improved efficiency in the assessment of disabilities.”

By end September, 16.9 million beneficiaries received social grants. The child support grant is R350 per month, while a disability grant is R1 500 per month. These grants take R52bn and R20.4bn respectively from the R167.5bn allocated for 2016/17 social development budget.

The Treasury said the government had also decided to raise the child support grant by R10 to R360 as from this month to offset the effects of high food inflation. It was announced in the 2016 Budget speech that the old-age, disability and care dependency grants would each increase by R10 in October.

Meanwhile, the Treasury said the cabinet had approved in principle an extended child support grant, which could be implemented in 2018/19, for orphans who had lost both parents. It also announced a conditional grant with effect from 2017/18 in a bid to support the employment of social worker graduates from the national scholarship programme. – ANA