Post office to refund recipients R17.2m

THE South African Post Office (SAPO) will cough up R17.2 million to reimburse social grant beneficiaries whose accounts have been defrauded since February 2020.

This was revealed by Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu when she was responding in writing to parliamentary questions from IFP MP Liezl van der Merve.

South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) grant recipients have experienced problems with unauthorised deductions from their social grants.

Van der Merve said this was despite the assurance when the gold Sassa-SAPO cards were introduced that the cards were safe and could not be duplicated.

She asked Zulu about measures her department intended to put in place to resolve the ongoing problem of illegal deductions from grant recipients.

Van der Merve also asked for the total number of Sassa officials who had been prosecuted for their involvement in fraud and the amount Sassa had lost due to fraud during the past 12 months.

In her written response, Zulu said 17 Sassa officials had been prosecuted for their involvement in fraudulent activities over the past 12 months.

She revealed that the total amount defrauded from February 2020 to January 2021 was R17 279 523.

“This amount mainly consists of money lost through Sassa cards that were fraudulently re-issued within the South African Post Office environment. This loss is covered (by) SAPO which is responsible for the reimbursement of social grant beneficiaries who have been negatively affected by these fraudulent transactions,” Zulu added.

She said unauthorised stop orders or debit orders were not allowed off the Sassa-SAPO card account.

“The only deductions which are allowed off social grants are premiums for funeral policies, in accordance with Regulation 26A to the Social Assistance Act,” she said.

Zulu said the authorised deductions were managed by Sassa before the social grants were paid to beneficiaries and that they were only effected with the consent of the beneficiary.

Zulu said in instances where social grant beneficiaries elected to receive the social grant into their personal bank accounts, they were able to authorise deductions and stop orders, and cancel these if needed with their bank.

“It is possible that abuse of deductions may occur in this commercial banking space. However, Sassa does not have any control over accounts held with commercial banks. Should a beneficiary have challenges with their bank, they can choose to have their grant paid via the Sassa/ SAPO payment system, which does not allow for deductions.”

The defrauding of R17.2m social grants and prosecution of Sassa officials comes after it was revealed that 241 civil servants defrauded the state of R84 350 as they receieved the R350 Covid-19 social relief of distress grants in May 2020.

Earlier this week, Zulu said investigations into fraudulent applications for the R350 Covid-19 grant were ongoing.

“Upon completion, Sassa will approach the relevant institution to recover the money.”