Main reason for elderly grants fraud revealed
MBABANE – The burying of dead people without obtaining death certificates has been identified as the main reason behind the fraudulent disbursement of elderly grants.
Last Tuesday, the Deputy Prime Minister’s (DPM) Office, through its Director of Social Welfare Mcusi Shongwe, disclosed that they had uncovered 34 fraudulent cases of the elderly grant. This was during a press conference that was conducted by the Principal Secretary (PS) Melusi Masuku, where he launched the funeral cover for elderly people in the country.
While responding to questions posed by this reporter, the director revealed that there were fraudulent cases discovered in the distribution process.
The Social Welfare Office is due to continue distributing the monthly elderly grants. The first phase of the monthly distribution would be for two months, starting from February. However, the exercise will start from the communities where the beneficiaries, including disability grants, have verified their personal details, signifying proof of life.
Through the verification exercise that started in the Shiselweni Region last year in November, the fraudulent cases were discovered. The reason the office concluded that these 34 cases were fraudulent was because no one had come to verify proof of life, yet payment had been made to the beneficiaries. This made the office believe that some of the families did not report the deaths of their loved ones, who were beneficiaries of the grant.
Beneficiaries
The country, last year, had around 80 000 elderly people who were beneficiaries of the government grant. A majority of them received their quarterly grants through the Eswatini Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (EPTC) and MTN Mobile Money.
The DPMO partnered with EPTC in the disbursement exercise. Before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, elderly people made their way to their nearest post offices to receive their grants, upon the announcement of dates for the process.
This only applied to those who were not getting paid through bank accounts. Elderly people who received their grants through their respective banks still received it monthly. Senior citizens in the country are entitled to E500 monthly, which makes it E1 500 in three months, while the disability grant is E280 monthly. This means in the last cycle, which was in December, government might have lost E51 000 due to the fraudulant cases.
In 2020, due to COVID-19 pandemic, the DPMO and EPTC roped in MTN as the distributor of the grants. This was because large gatherings during the pandemic were banned because they were thought to be super-spread
The elderly were also classified among those vulnerable to contract COVID-19, as most of those who had tested positive hardly survived.
That led to the introduction of payment of the grant through MTN Mobile Money. As it stands, to date, the DPMO verifies the lists of the beneficiaries and sends it to the post office, which then forwards it to the distributers until it reaches the beneficiaries.
Seemingly, the chain that led to the 34 fraudulent cases was due to the list that came from the DMPO. The list that was given to the post office and MTN to disburse through Mobile Money contained names of people who were no longer alive.
Obtaining of death certificates and burying of the beneficiaries of the grant was found to be connected to most of the fraudulent cases. This conclusion was drawn by this publication after conducting interviews with the constituency councillors, also known as bucopho, in some of the communities, where the verification exercise, also known as Vela, had been initiated. Most of the communities are located in the Shiselweni and Hhohho regions. The Vela exercise was in partnership with Eswatini Communications Commission (ESCCOM).
Updating
Worth noting, bucopho also play a crucial part in updating the lists of beneficiaries of the grant. This is because upon the passing of an elderly person, according to the elected officers, they fill in a form which they submit to constituency centres or social welfare centres in the country. The filled-in form includes those who have just applied for the grant, as well as a list of the deceased. It is then taken to the DPMO.
Besides the form that should be filled in by bucopho to update the list, a death certificate is the quickest way to solve the issue. This is because once the Ministry of Home Affairs issues a death certificate; the entire government system would be notified. By extension, the DPMO would subsequently remove such a beneficiary from the next cycle of payments.
The DPMO, according to Shongwe, was conducting all necessary investigations to seek justice in these cases. When he was asked if they were going to ask the individuals erroneously receiving the grant to repay the money or face arrest, he said necessary steps were being taken after the grants had been stopped immediately.
The PS, on the other hand, said if they had enough resources, they would be conducting the verification exercise every six months. He said they were made to believe that a number of people were fraudulently receiving the grant.
However, there were special cases where a beneficiary passed away days before the payment of the grant. For instance if they died three days before the disbursement of the grant, the family gets the grant because it had already been loaded onto the system.
Also, the bucopho informed this Times reporter that such a list was updated every three months.
Contrary to belief that the councillors were not doing a thorough job as they were not filling in the forms they were supposed to fill, they revealed that some families did not obtain death certificates of their deceased loved ones.
“Some people in our communities are buried without death certificates,” said Zikhoteni Bucopho NdumisoMathunjwa.
Mathunjwa said cases where the bucopho would not bother filling in forms of deceased beneficiaries, was when the family gave an impression that they obtained the death certificate. Mathunjwa said in cases where they were told there was a death certificate, they did not fill in forms until such fraudulent cases surfaced. He said the only time they filled in the forms would be when the family told them that they did not obtain a death certificate for the deceased.
“We understand that a death certificate is connected to the entire government system, therefore, once the family says they have it, we back off,” he said.
Mathunjwa said it was better when the grants were received at the post office, because they would be able to notice a family member queuing for the grant, yet they all knew that the beneficiary was deceased.
He said the digital system had loopholes, more especially for government because the family members received the grant privately.
Certificates
Dumenkhungwini Bucopho Bafanabodvwa Sithole also lamented the issue of death certificates. He added that some families had relatives who stayed outside the country. He said some people in their areas had families in South Africa and had used several methods of obtaining citizenships by birth and marriage. He said this made some of these individuals benefit from the grant.
Sithole said in some cases, these individuals, after falling ill, went to their relatives in South Africa.
“Some die in South Africa and get buried there too,” he said.
Sithole said in these cases, their relatives would not notify them about their passing. He said even if the news of the passing could be shared among some family members, it might not reach them on time, because some communities were large. He said it was even difficult when the relatives maintained that such a person was still alive, but receiving treatment in the neighbouring country.
“I cannot declare a person dead without being told by the family or seeing their grave,” he said.
The South African Citizenship Act allows its nationals to have dual citizenship, but in Eswatini that is not allowed. This is contained in the SA Citizenship Act, 1995 (Act 88 of 1995) as amended with Act 2010 No.17, which came into effect on January 1, 2013.